This paper presents an analysis of 2DOF discrete dead-time compensators for stable and integrative processes. The proposed structure can be tuned taking into account the performance and robustness of the closed-loop. Also a novel procedure to choose the sampling period is presented considering the robustness and the disturbance rejection response of the closed-loop system. In order to illustrate the results, some simulation examples and experimental results are shown. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.