In order to qualify for the tournament, teams would have to go through regional qualifiers. At the main tournament, three nations qualified for the world championships: China, Lebanon and host Qatar. China defeated Lebanon in the championship game, 77–61; Qatar defeated Korea, 89–77.
According to the FIBA Asia rules, each zone had two places, and the hosts (Qatar) and Stanković Cup champion (Korea as runner-up) were automatically qualified. The other four places are allocated to the zones according to performance in the 2004 FIBA Asia Stanković Cup.