Social contexts often prompt individuals to activate multiple identities simultaneously. These identities may be compatible, providing individuals with congruent interpretations of information and events and preferred courses of action; or they may be dissimilar, providing individuals with conflicting ways of thinking, feeling and behaving. The latter we refer to as the “multiple identity problem,” which is increasingly relevant in organizations due changes in organizational strategies, structures and practices that make the activation of multiple identities more likely. In this theoretical paper we synthesize research from multiple literatures to develop a typology of the challenges and opportunities associated with multiple identities and contextual conditions that make simultaneously salient identities more or less problematic. We also explore the means by which individuals manage multiple identities. By integrating across different literatures and building a bridge between basic theory and contextually specific research, we are able to inform both theory and practice.