In this contribution. a novel approach for the modeling and numerical optimal control of hybrid (discrete-continuous dynamic) systems based on a disjunctive problem formulation is proposed. It is shown that a disjunctive model representation, which constitutes an alternative to mixed-integer model formulations, provides a very flexible, intuitive and effective way to formulate hybrid (discrete-continuous dynamic) optimization problems. The structure and properties of the disjunctive process models can be exploited for an efficient and robust numerical solution by applying generalized disjunctive programming techniques. The proposed modeling and optimization approach will be illustrated by means of optimal control of hybrid systems embedding linear discrete-continuous dynamic models. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.