Successful management of chronic gout depends on reducing body pools of urate. The benchmark of success is to maintain serum urate levels at less than 6 mg/dL using therapies such as probenecid or allopurinol. In a subset of patients with gout, these medications fail to achieve this benchmark, resulting in ongoing signs and symptoms characteristic of treatment-failure gout. Potential therapies now in clinical development show promise for treating this refractory patient population. In this article, we review the clinical characteristics associated with treatment-failure gout and discuss recent data from clinical trials of febuxostat and uricase.