We sampled assemblages of ground-dwelling spiders with pitfall traps in six terrestrial habitats representing a successional gradient in southwestern Virginia, during the summer of 2002. Approximately half of the 50 species trapped were habitat specialists with low abundance, found at only one of the sites, which is qualitatively consistent with the literature. Only four species, Schizocosa ocreata (Hentz 1844), Pirata insularis (Emerton 1885) Pirata aspirans (Chamberlain 1904) and Neoantistea magna (Keyserling 1887) were found at as many as four sites. A few species that were found in more than one study from disparate geographical communities, such as Trochosa terricola (Thorell 1856) tended also to be relatively abundant habitat generalists. In general, the majority of spider species found in studies such as ours that examined multiple sites were habitat specialists and had low abundance. For our sample sites, there was no relationship between any measure of spider diversity (S, H', J') and successional age. Our results, and those of most other published studies, are consistent with the hypothesis that spider assemblages do not undergo succession and except for a few very common generalist species the composition of these communities is unpredictable, and may depend more on stochastic colonization and specific resource requirements of specialists following immigration than on any predictable association with successional parameters.