  R~CrA is the brightest member of the Coronet star forming region and it is
the closest Herbig AeBe star with a spectrum dominated by emission lines. Its
luminosity has been monitored since the end of the 19th century, but the origin
of its variability, which shows a stable period of $65.767\pm 0.007$~days, is
still unknown. We studied photometric and spectroscopic data for this star to
investigate the nature of the variability of R~CrA. We exploited the fact that
near infrared luminosity of the Herbig AeBe stars is roughly proportional to
the total luminosity of the stars to derive the absorption, and then mass and
age of R~CrA. In addition, we model the periodic modulation of the light curve
as due to partial attenuation of a central binary by a circumbinary disk. This
model reproduces very well the observations. We found that the central object
in R~CrA is a very young ($1.5\pm 1.5$~Myr), highly absorbed ($A_V=5.47\pm
0.4$~mag) binary; we obtain masses of $M_A=3.02\pm 0.43$~M$_\odot$ and
$M_B=2.32\pm 0.35$~M$_\odot$ for the two components. We propose that the
secular decrease of the R~CrA apparent luminosity is due to a progressive
increase of the disk absorption. This might be related to precession of a
slightly inclined disk caused by the recently discovered M-dwarf companion.
Thus, R~CrA may be a triple system hosting a disk.
