We present a microstructure-based dual-core dispersion-compensating fiber (DCF) design for dispersion compensation in long-haul optical communication links. The design has been conceptualized by combining the all-solid dual-core DCF and dispersion-compensating photonic crystal fiber. The fiber design has been analyzed numerically by using a full vectorial finite difference time domain method. We propose a fiber design for narrowband as well as broadband dispersion compensation. In the narrowband DCF design, the fiber exhibits very large negative dispersion of around -42,000 ps nm(-1) km(-1) and a large mode area of 67 μm(2). The effects of varying different structural parameters on the dispersion characteristics as well as on the trade-off between full width at half-maximum and dispersion have been investigated. For broadband DCF design, a dispersion value between -860 ps nm(-1)km(-1) and -200 ps nm(-1) km(-1) is obtained for the entire spectral range of the C band.