Sustainable development is the backbone for defining policies and strategies for economic and social progress, which will not affect the environment. Its primary goal is to ensure the sustainable use of natural resources at all levels of planning and in all spheres of everyday life. Such a thing can be done by creating plans, monitoring and analyzing the impact on the environment, resources, other people and meeting their needs, but also the needs of future generations. Plitvice Lakes National Park, in addition to being the oldest and most popular national park in Croatia, is inscribed onto UNESCO -v World Natural Heritage List. Tourism in the Plitvice Lakes National Park is recording constant increases in terms of both the number of arrivals and the number of overnight stays, which has a positive impact on economic development and the standard of living within and around the Park. Unfortunately, although tourism is developing rapidly, at the same time it negatively affects the natural and cultural values of the Plitvice Lakes National Park. For this reason, this paper, through quantitative and qualitative analyzes through research of secondary and primary information, provides insight into the specifics of sustainable development of Plitvice Lakes National Park, development of tourism within its borders and in it’s surroundings and evaluation of previous work in the field of sustainability. Respondents of the research gave their suggestions for further direction of development and thus this paper provides specific instructions on further activities that should and could be applied in the daily functioning of the National Park, with the aim of preserving its values for future generations, while positively influencing the life of the local community.