For practising clinicians and educators, the evaluation of a bright individual for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can be fraught with difficulties. Many gifted people with ADHD gravitate towards the average, with their intellectual ability pulling them in one direction and their learning or concentration difficulties pulling them in the other – a phenomenon often referred to as a ‘dual diagnosis’. In others, coexisting conditions and/or the ability to ‘hyperfocus’ on interesting subjects can mask the underlying diagnosis. This article aims to help clarify some of the key difficulties surrounding giftedness in ADHD.