A database management system predicts a selectivity for database query conditions requiring a join of records from different tables. The system identifies at least one skewed value in a field specified in the join condition, and constructs, for each skewed value, a set of hypothetical query predicates in which the field specified in the join condition is replaced with a constant equal to the skewed value. The system then predicts the selectivity for the hypothetical predicates, using any appropriate prediction technique. The selectivities of the hypothetical predicates are used to predict a selectivity for the original query.