Example systems and methods for cloning catalog objects are described. In one implementation, a method identifies an original catalog object associated with a set of data and creates a duplicate copy of the original catalog object without copying the data itself. The method allows access to the set of data using the duplicate catalog object and supports modifying the data associated with the original catalog object independently of the duplicate catalog object. The duplicate catalog object can be deleted upon completion of modifying the data associated with the original catalog object.