This study investigated the role of verbal working memory on bilingual lexical disambiguation. Spanish-English bilinguals with low and high digit span read sentences in their second language ending in a cognate homonym (novel), noncognate homonym (fast), cognate (piano) or non-cognate (pencil). The dominant meanings of cognate homonyms were shared across languages while subordinate meanings were unique to the second language. Participants decided whether follow-up targets were related in meaning to the sentence. On critical trials sentences biased the subordinate meaning of the homonym and targets were related to the dominant meaning (novel – BOOK; fast – SPEED), forcing rejection of dominant meanings shared across the two languages. Performance patterns for both groups reflected cross-language activation of cognate meanings. The nature of these effects was facilitative for high-span participants whereas they were inhibitory in nature for low-span participants. Results are discussed in terms of theories of bilingual working memory and lexical disambiguation.