Assessment of combining abilities is important in evaluation of hybrid combinations for genetic improvement. Our objective in this study was to determine combining abilities of 3 color variants of Nigerian indigenous turkeys. Two hundred fifty poults consisting of 41 White × White (WW), 40 Black × Black (BB), 32 Lavender × Lavender (LL) purebreds; 26 White × Black (W×B), 24 Black × White (B×W), 22 White × Lavender (W×L), 20 Lavender × White (L×W), 23 Black × Lavender (B×L) and 22 Lavender x Black (L×B) crossbreds were generated from matings among White, Black and Lavender color types. The poults were raised from day-old to 20 weeks. A 3 × 3 diallel design was set up and data analyzed using SAS (2005) to estimate general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) for fertility, hatchability, weak-in-shell, dead-in-shell, dead-in-germ, body weight, breast girth, body length and thigh length. The highest GCA was recorded for fertility (4.44), hatchability (5.39) and dead-in-shell (2.60) in BB, LL and WW respectively. SCA for fertility was the highest in W×B (0.07). W×L had highest SCA (3.28) for hatchability. Least SCA for weak-in-shell (−0.50), dead-in-germ (−2.87) and dead-in-shell (−47.17) were observed in W×L crossbred. The highest GCA for body weight at wk 20 was recorded for WW (90.83). The highest SCA for body weight at wk 20 was recorded in W×L (0.62). BB had highest GCA values for breast girth, body length and thigh length at wk 20 (1.46, 0.46 and 0.41 respectively). B×W recorded the highest SCA (0.94) for breast girth; W×L gave the highest SCA (2.34) for body length while the highest SCA (0.89) for thigh length was observed in B×L turkey genotype. Based on genetic parameter estimates, additive variance was more important for growth parameters, fertility and dead-in-germ while dominance variance was higher and more important in controlling hatchability, weak-in-shell and dead-in-shell than additive variance. Dams from B×W crossbred local turkey can be used to improve growth performance while W×L can be used to achieve best combiners for improvement of reproductive traits in Nigerian indigenous turkeys.