Mechanisms for priority control in resource allocation is provided. With these mechanisms, when a unit makes a request to a token manager, the unit identifies the priority of its request as well as the resource which it desires to access and the unit's resource access group (RAG). This information is used to set a value of a storage device associated with the resource, priority, and RAG identified in the request. When the token manager generates and grants a token to the RAG, the token is in turn granted to a unit within the RAG based on a priority of the pending requests identified in the storage devices associated with the resource and RAG. Priority pointers are utilized to provide a round-robin fairness scheme between high and low priority requests within the RAG for the resource.