This paper presents specialized code generation techniques and runtime optimizations for developing light-weight XML Web services for embedded devices. The optimizations are implemented in the gSOAP Web services development environment for C and C++. The system supports the industrystandard XML-based Web services protocols that are intended to deliver universal access to any networked application that supports XML. With the standardization of the Web services protocols and the availability of toolkits such as gSOAP for developing embedded Web services, new opportunities emerge to integrate embedded systems into larger frameworks of interconnected applications and systems accessing dynamic resources on the Web ranging from handheld and embedded devices to databases, clusters, and Grids. Keywords Networking, XML, Web Services, Embedded Systems