A universal model-based approach for item disambiguation and selection is provided. An utterance may be received by a computing device in response to a list of items for selection. In aspects, the list of items may be displayed on a display screen. The universal disambiguation model may then be applied to the utterance. The universal disambiguation model may be utilized to determine whether the utterance is directed to at least one of the list of items and identify an item from the list corresponding to the utterance, based on identified language and/or domain independent referential features. The computing device may then perform an action which may include selecting the identified item associated with utterance.