This study investigated and compared the properties of five methods of item exposure control within the purview of estimating examinees' abilities in a computerized adaptive testing (CAT) context. Each of the exposure control algorithms was incorporated into the item selection procedure and the adaptive testing progressed based on the CAT design established for this study. Using Monte Carlo simulation, the merits and shortcomings of these strategies were considered under different item pool sizes and different maximum exposure rates and were evaluated in light of test security, item overlap rate, and the conditional standard errors of measurement. The ultimate goal of the study was to provide guidelines for choosing appropriate methods of controlling item exposure so that test security concern in the CAT environment could be lessened. Among the five exposure control algorithms investigated in this study, the conditional procedure developed by M. Stocking and C. Lewis (1995) best served the purpose of controlling the observed exposure rates to the desired values as well as producing the lowest test overlap rates. The trade-off was that measurement precision was sacrificed to some extent. (Contains 4 tables, 9 figures, and 28 references.) (Author/SLD)