Since the middle of the 1990s, Conditional Cash Transfer Programs (CCTs) have spread in Latin America as a result of a policy diffusion process. This article provides a proposal for a comparative analysis of the mechanisms of diffusion, distinguishing motivations and means, which is applied in Chile and Ecuador using process tracing methodology. Outcomes reveal that the variables with greater influence in the mechanisms of diffusion were both the existence of a regional epistemic community and the domestic technical capacities of the institutions. In that sense, countries with high technical capacity institutions adopt CCTs through learning mechanisms and those with weak ones capacities adopt them through coercion or emulation.