We study theoretically the interactions of excitonic states with surface electromagnetic modes of a semiconducting carbon nanotube. We show that these interactions result in the exciton–plasmon coupling which may be significant in its strength due to the presence of the low-energy (
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0.5–2 eV) interband plasmon modes and large exciton excitation energies of
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1 eV in the small-diameter single-walled nanotubes.