  Eight dwarf starburst galaxies have been observed with the Caltech
Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) telescope in the CO J= 3 - 2 transition. The
galaxies observed are He 2-10, NGC 5253, NGC 1569, NGC 3077, Haro 2, Haro 3, II
Zw 40 and Mrk 86; all but the last two are detected. The central regions of He
2-10 and NGC 5253 were mapped and a CO(2-1) spectrum of NGC 5253 was obtained.
The error weighted mean CO(3-2)/CO(1-0) ratio of the detected galaxies is
0.60$\pm$0.06, which is virtually identical to what is found for starbursts in
the nuclei of nearby spirals, and suggests that the molecular gas is optically
thick, warm (T$_{k}>$20 K), and moderately dense ($n_{H_{2}}\sim 10^{3-4}
cm^{-3}$). The CO(3-2)/CO(1-0) ratio peaks at or close to the starburst in all
cases. CO emission does not appear to be optically thin in these dwarfs,
despite the low metallicity and intense radiation fields, which is probably
because in order for CO to exist in detectable amounts it must be
self-shielding and hence optically thick. Physical properties of the molecular
clouds in these dwarf starbursts appear to be essentially the same as nearby
spiral nuclei, with the possible exception that CO is more confined to the
cloud cores.
