When a white dwarf ( WD ) is weakly magnetized and its accretion disk is thin , accreted material first reaches the WD ’ s surface at its equator . This matter slows its orbit as it comes into co-rotation with the WD , dissipating kinetic energy into thermal energy and creating a hot band of freshly accreted material around the equator . Radiating in the extreme ultraviolet and soft X-rays , this material moves toward the pole as new material piles behind it , eventually becoming part of the WD once it has a temperature and rotational velocity comparable with the surface . We present a set of solutions which describe the properties of this ‘ ‘ spreading layer ’ ’ in the steady state limit based on the conservation equations derived by Inogamov & Sunyaev ( 1999 ) for accreting neutron stars . Our analysis and subsequent solutions show that the case of WDs is qualitatively different . We investigate example solutions of the spreading layer for a WD of mass M = 0.6 M _ { \odot } and radius R = 9 \times 10 ^ { 8 } \textrm { cm } . These solutions show that the spreading layer typically extends to an angle of \theta _ { SL } \approx 0.01 - 0.1 ( with respect to the equator ) , depending on accretion rate and the magnitude of the viscosity . At low accretion rates , \dot { M } \lesssim 10 ^ { 18 } \textrm { g s } ^ { -1 } , the amount of spreading is negligible and most of the dissipated energy is radiated back into the accretion disk . When the accretion rate is high , such as in dwarf novae , the material may spread to latitudes high enough to be visible above the accretion disk . The effective temperature of the spreading layer is \sim ( 2 - 5 ) \times 10 ^ { 5 } \textrm { K } with approximately T _ { eff } \propto \dot { M } ^ { 9 / 80 } . This power-law dependence on \dot { M } is weaker than for a fixed radiating area and may help explain extreme ultraviolet observations during dwarf novae . We speculate about other high accretion rate systems ( \dot { M } \gtrsim 10 ^ { 18 } \textrm { g s } ^ { -1 } ) which may show evidence for a spreading layer , including symbiotic binaries and supersoft sources .