This paper presents an approach whose objective is to support Web services substitution. Substitution means replacing a component with another component, as long as the replacing component produces the same output and satisfies the same requirements as the replaced component. Motives for substitution include Web service's non-responsiveness to client requests and better arrangement with another, competitor Web service. To perform Web services substitution with less impact on the ongoing, and sometimes critical, business processes, the approach proposes deploying communities of Web services. A community promotes the dynamic binding of Web services through a common interface, known as Open Service Connectivity. The Open Service Connectivity directs requests to and responses from Web services regardless of how these latter are specified, implemented, and located. © 2006 IEEE.