A multi-primary light emitting diode system includes the use of a polarization based dichroic element to combine light from different color channels. At least one of the color channels includes two light emitting diodes that produce light with a different range of wavelengths. The use of the polarization based dichroic element permits overlapping spectra from different color channels to be combined without loss. Accordingly, the brightness of the system is improved relative to conventional systems in which losses occur when combining overlapping spectra from different channels.