A pulse driven two lamp (40, 50) single light valve (62) imaging display system (10). The first lamp (40) is used to generate red light, and the second lamp (50) is used to generate blue and green light. A beam splitter (46) combines the white light of the two light sources, and directs the light to a color wheel (26). The first red lamp (40) is driven at a peak power being 3X the average power rating of the lamp for ⅓ of a video frame. The second blue-green lamp (50) is pulse driven at a peak power being 150% its average power rating for ⅔ of a video frame. The present invention achieves improved color balance and increased intensity, and is a simple and cost effective architecture.