The increased world-demand for water and energy and rapidly growing investments in clean-energy sources have led to serious consideration for the use of renewable sources of energy to desalinate seawater or brackish water. There are several technologies used currently, and solar energy has been shown to be a viable source for these important applications. But among the various solar energy approaches (photovoltaics, solar thermal), innovation is still required to improve performance and achieve economic viability. Solar chimneys are devices that use solar energy to generate a hot airflow that can drive wind turbines and produce electric power. One of the main disadvantages of solar chimneys is their very low efficiency. The overall performance can be improved significantly by combining water desalination and power generation in one system. There are still only a few studies reporting the use of solar chimneys for desalination, but these results are promising. Most of the studies available in the literature focus on numerical simulations, evaluating several possibilities to increase the overall performance and the utilization efficiency of solar energy. No single hybrid chimney-desalination configuration has yet shown itself to be the obvious choice, and further studies are required. This paper discusses and reviews the main technologies used for solar desalination and evaluates the most relevant approaches for the use of solar chimneys for such water treatment.