Summary: We describe the plans for a joint search for unmodelled gravitational wave bursts being carried out by the LIGO and TAMA Collaborations using data collected during February–April 2003. We take a conservative approach to detection, requiring candidate gravitational wave bursts to be seen in coincidence by all four interferometers. We focus on some of the complications of performing this coincidence analysis, in particular the effects of the different alignments and noise spectra of the interferometers.