Insomnia is common amongst people who suffer from persistent pain. Cognitive behavioural models of insomnia propose that insomnia is maintained by unhelpful sleep related coping strategies, and is underpinned by dysfunctional beliefs about sleep. Cognitive behavioural models of disability and psychological functioning in chronic pain propose that if the person with chronic pain tends to adopt an avoidant style of managing their pain this may have the effect of disrupting their sleep. These predictions were examined in a sample of participants with chronic pain using a cross sectional study design. Good and poor sleepers were compared. Good sleepers reported lower levels of pain, lower levels of depression, less avoidant style of coping with pain, and endorsed fewer dysfunctional beliefs about sleep. The study also used hierarchical regression analysis to examine the roles of avoidant coping with pain and dysfunctional beliefs about sleep in predicting concurrent sleep quality. Only the addition of information about dysfunctional beliefs about sleep improved the prediction of concurrent sleep quality over the prediction based on pain and depression.