The existence of "dispersion-managed solitons," i.e., stable pulsating solitary-wave solutions to the nonlinear Schrodinger equation with periodically modulated and sign-variable dispersion is now well known in nonlinear optics. Our purpose here is to investigate whether similar structures exist for other well-known nonlinear wave models. Hence, here we consider as a basic model the variable-coefficient Korteweg-de Vries equation; this has the form of a Korteweg-de Vries equation with a periodically varying third-order dispersion coefficient, that can take both positive and negative values. More generally, this model may be extended to include fifth-order dispersion. Such models may describe, for instance, periodically modulated waveguides for long gravity-capillary waves. We develop an analytical approximation for solitary waves in the weakly nonlinear case, from which it is possible to obtain a reduction to a relatively simple integral equation, which is readily solved numerically. Then, we describe some systematic direct simulations of the full equation, which use the soliton shape produced by the integral equation as an initial condition. These simulations reveal regions of stable and unstable pulsating solitary waves in the corresponding parametric space. Finally, we consider the effects of fifth-order dispersion. (c) 2002 American Institute of Physics.