  Recent studies of the hydration of micro- and nanoscale solutes have
demonstrated a strong {\it coupling} between hydrophobic, dispersion and
electrostatic contributions, a fact not accounted for in current implicit
solvent models. We present a theoretical formalism which accounts for coupling
by minimizing the Gibbs free energy with respect to a solvent volume exclusion
function. The solvent accessible surface is output of our theory. Our method is
illustrated with the hydration of alkane-assembled solutes on different length
scales, and captures the strong sensitivity to the particular form of the
solute-solvent interactions in agreement with recent computer simulations.
