A method and apparatus for providing, in a processor, a shift operation on a packed data element having multiple values. One embodiment of a central processing unit (CPU) includes instruction fetch logic to fetch a single-instruction-multiple-data (SIMD) shift instruction. A register stores a multiple data elements to be operated upon by the SIMD shift instruction. A barrel shifter concurrently shifts the data elements in a bit-wise manner by a variable number of bit positions in response to the SIMD shift instruction.