It is being written in 1st person, present tense. I have two main characters and they are alternating views after every chapter. My concern is confusing the reader with the switching of 1st person POV. Third person may seem easier, but I've envisioned the novel being in 1st.

I know a lot of people are not huge Twilight fans here, but Breaking Dawn has a first person POV switch from Bella to Jacob. I think Meyers does this extremely well. It is very clear whose POV we are in, and the Jacob sections don't read anything like the Bella sections. You can really see their distinct personalities in the narrative.

It might be worth checking out if you want to see how something like this has been done before.

ETA. I've read a lot of first person present tense lately. It annoys me in the beginning, but once I get into the book, I don't notice it anymore. A good example is The Hunger Games.

My go to advice in this situation is re-write a scene in the other way and see how you like it.

You can do first person with different characters just, as has been said, put their name right at the top, over the chapter title. No worries.

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I also always thought I hated present tense, but I just read "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson, in present tense all the way through the novel, and it never bothered me once. It worked perfectly for that story.

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Like one of you said, why not write it all in 1st person past tense? Now wouldn't that mean the narrator would be telling the story from the very beginning of the novel and in the end being "where he was at the start". I haven't really thought about doing that...

With first person, most newer writers get tripped up with overusing personal pronouns, such as I, me, we, and us. There begins to be a sort of monotony unless done very well, and the story has the potential to get lost within this POV.

With present tense, many find themselves either slipping back into past on occasions or hitting brick walls where the story can't be effectively progressed in this tense. This is largely due to the fact that as the author speaks, everything that has happened previously then becomes the past. With two speakers, this could potentially cause you some trouble.

"What does that measn?"

"An extended part of a story with nothing but characters speaking"

"Sounds a little strange"

First person make narration especially difficult. One thing you must remember is that the only things that can happen in the novel are either from direct experience or heresay. If there is something happening in the next room or across town, the narrator won't be able to know it, unless he can see through walls or has visions. Now, this also holds true for close third, but there are more ways around it with that POV, which can often involve changes in POV character. This is less easily pulled off in first.

There are some great stories written in first; one classic is The Great Gatsby and one recent that comes to mind is The Historian, which uses multiple POV characters spread across time - and Elizabeth Kostova, the author, was a first-time novelist. I believe the key is to continue to focus on other characters versus the narrator (this seems to be something consistent in well-written first person stories).

There are also some excellent present tense stories - Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union (written in present tense) won the 2008 Hugo and Nebula awards. However, he used a 40's pulp style that worked well in present tense. Also, a little tidbit about the story is that Chabon originally wrote it in first person POV and then went back and completely rewrote it in third.

One suggestion I would make is to find an author who writes in a similar style to your own and emulate his/her approach (POV and tense). The other is focus on the story structure and multiple characters.