This patent application relates generally to a shared-credit arbitration circuit for use in arbitrating access by a number of virtual channels to a shared resource managed by a destination (arbiter) based on credits allotted to each virtual channel, in which only the destination is aware of the availability of a shared pool of resources, and the destination selectively provides access to the shared pool by the virtual channels and returns credits to the source(s) associated with the virtual channels when shared resources are used so that the source(s) are unaware of the destination's use of the shared resources and are unhindered by the destination's use of shared resources. Among other things, this can significantly reduce the complexity of the source(s) and the required handshaking between the source(s) and the destination.