The approach based on the incubation time concept is used to analyze experimental data on acoustic cavitation in degassed water and in sea water. Earlier, a similar approach proved to be effective in analyzing the cavitation due to pulse loading and in studying the dynamic strength of solids. The proposed criterion takes into account the existence of the static cavitation threshold for low-frequency loading and makes it possible to explain the growth of the cavitation threshold for high-frequency loading, as well as the appreciable spread in experimental data.