The present study has as main objective to investigate the process of recognition of international opportunities by small and medium Brazilian firms. This study is characterized as a longitudinal research, which seeks to understand the phenomenon investigated from the perspective of processes. Existing theories in International Business implicitly assume that the internationalization of firms is preceded by the process of opportunity formation, but presents little explanation of this process, whether opportunities are actively created, discovered randomly or through research. In the entrepreneurship literature, despite the growing interest in the study of opportunities, no model was found that described the process of opportunity formation as a process effectively. In the field of International Entrepreneurship (IE) little attention seems to have been dispensed with the process of recognizing international opportunities since this theme emerged. Since IE sould integrate both the theoretical perspectives of International Business and Entrepreneurship, the literature review is organized into two parts. The first presents the ontological discussion about the nature and the formation of entrepreneurial opportunities, as well as the theoretical positioning adopted. The second part seeks to identify the factors and mechanisms by which these would influence the recognition of international opportunities. The present work adopted the theoretical perspective of Effectuation, since this theory, originating in the field of entrepreneurship, adopts the lens of processes on the entrepreneurial action and privileges the logic of control over the forecasting logic for the strategic decisions of the firm in contexts of uncertainty. In fact, Effectuation theory is adequate as a basis for internationalization theories given that the decision to internationalize is usually modeled as a process rather than a deliberate and goal-oriented strategic decision at a given point in time. The following question guided the study: How do small and medium sized companies recognize opportunities in the international market? The question addressed in this paper seeks to understand how the phenomenon, recognition of international opportunities, emerges, develops, grows or ends over time. In this way, the process perspective seems to be the most adequate to answer the research. Thus, two longitudinal case studies were conducted in companies that are recognizing international opportunities. As a method of data collection, real-time observation was used in which the two companies were monitored for approximately two years. The longitudinal real-time approach has allowed tracking the internal processes of organizations long enough to observe how entrepreneurs see problems and opportunities in the external market and how they react to them. The results allowed the observation of the evolution of the process of recognition of such companies, identifying important steps and events. The factors and mechanisms that contributed to the recognition of opportunities in the international market were also identified, being confronted with the literature on the subject. Finally, the results obtained add knowledge both to International Bussines and to the field of International Entrepreneurship.