One of several popular televised entertainment programs in the Arab world over the last two decades, Arab Idol is an offshoot of the global Idols franchise that launched in the early 2000s. Conceived as a regional program, the pan-Arab offshoot was the first of the Idols franchise to involve contestants from across a range of countries. What first distinguished Arab Idol from its global counterparts was a unity around a socio-linguistic and regional Arab--rather than a national—identity. Judges and the program’s emcees make ample references to kull al-‘alam al-‘arabi (the entire Arab world) or al-watan al-‘arabi (the Arab homeland). At the same time, the show has the task of representing an immense diversity across this region of North Africa and the Arabic-speaking Middle East. In this paper, I explore some of the ways that the performances by contestants on live episodes of Arab Idol, coupled with the surrounding on-stage banter by judges and em-cees, also hailing from a range of Arab countries, serve to define the frame of an “Arab” Idol within a transnational cultural and political context. I examine how this revolving, transnational cast of actors constructs Arabness on Arab Idol, whether by performing musical styles or numbers representing specific nation-states, regions, or even particular cities throughout the Arab world, or through the recirculation of popular songs of a canonical pan-Arab stature.