  The metal-insulator transition in manganites is strongly influenced by the
concentration of holes present in the system. Based upon an orbitally
degenerate Mott-Hubbard model we analyze two possible localization scenarios to
account for this doping dependence: First, we rule out that the transition is
initiated by a disorder-order crossover in the orbital sector, showing that its
effect on charge mobility is only small. Second, we introduce the idea of
orbital polarons originating from a strong polarization of orbitals in the
vicinity of holes. Considering this direct coupling between charge and orbital
degree of freedom in addition to lattice effects we are able to explain well
the phase diagram of manganites for low and intermediate hole concentrations.
