1. A method for allocating work items in a work stealing data structure comprising a barrier pointer, a tail pointer, a head pointer, and an advertising flag, the method comprising: setting the barrier pointer to partition the work stealing data structure into a public section and a private section; setting the advertising flag upon detecting a steal operation by a foreign processor when no work items are in the public section; moving the barrier pointer to publicize a private work item upon detecting a set advertising flag when at least one private work item exists; and moving the barrier pointer to privatize a public work item in the private section upon detecting a claim operation by an owning processor when at least one private work item exists.