The main goal of this Paper is to present and compare key elements of social entrepreneurship development in Croatia, Italy and Slovenia. In the first part, the Paper covers emergence and conceptual definitions of social economy and social entrepreneurship as well as social enterprise and social entrepreneur on European level. Further more, there are discussed characteristics of social entrepreneurship in selected countries along with associated examples of good practice. Based on the above, this Paper includes a comparison and synthesis of findings from the literature related to the presented countries. Given that, Croatian social entrepreneurship is not sufficiently developed. The Paper aims to show the successful development processes of this area in countries that are potential learning models for Croatia. In this context, the central part of the paper mostly focuses on the development of the institutional, legal, policy and financial framework of social entrepreneurship. The last part refers to the conclusion that will summarize the simultaneous analysis of the scope of the reached development potential in Croatia and comparisons with selected countries, and once again emphasize the possibilities and obstacles for further development.