Microscopic incompatibility-induced stresses in a duplex stainless steel undergoing plastic deformation are elucidated using a visco-plastic self-consistent model. The model considers not only the grain-orientation-dependent stresses and phase-to-phase interactions, but also texture evolution during deformation. The parameters used for describing the micromechanical behavior of the two-phase polycrystalline material are directly derived from the neutron diffraction data. A reliable prediction of the evolution of grain orientation distributions for both phases at small deformations is achieved after considering various micromechanical interactions of the studied material. © 2007 Acta Materialia Inc.