Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media are provided for discovering and disambiguating identity providers such that user knowledge of appropriate identity providers is minimized. Users are presented with options for selecting appropriate providers only when multiple providers have user profiles matching a user identifier. When users are presented with options for selecting appropriate providers, providers that have user profiles matching the identifier are identified utilizing identity information for the application that utilizes the identity provider for its users rather than information identifying the identity provider itself. Where it is determined that no identity provider has a user profile associated with the user identifier (or where it is determined that a particular identity provider would generally be appropriate to be utilized with the user identifier), the opportunity for users to create an authentication account with one or more identity providers or to retry with a different user identifier is provided.