A high rate plastic deformation of fine grained materials has been considered as a result of com peting processes of dislocation gliding in the grains and grain boundary sliding. A structural model has been proposed for describing the grain boundary sliding as a dominant mechanism of plasticity of nanocrystalline metals. The dependence of the yield strength on the material properties, temperature, and deformation rate has been studied numerically. For the adequate description of the experimental data and molecular dynamics calculations, it is necessary to take into account two parameters, namely, the barrier stress, which is depen dent on the elastic constants of a material, and the boundary viscosity, which is substantially dependent on temperature.