The rapid identification of relevant bacterial pathogens is of utmost importance in clinical settings. The aim of this study was to test a rapid identification technique for A. baumannii strains from Tehran Hospitals and to determine the antibiotic resistance profiles of the isolates. A hundred strains of Acinetobacter spp. grown from clinical specimens were identified as A. baumannii by conventional methods. Using PCR a bla OXA-51 -like gene was detected in all A. baumannii isolates but not in other species of acinetobacter. More than half of the isolates proved resistant to a variety of antibiotics by the disk diffusion technique. The rate of resistance to gentamicin, imipenem, ampicillin-sulbactam and amikacin was determined to be 45%, 53%, 62% and 62%, respectively. Moreover, most isolates (more than 90%) showed resistance to cephalosporins. This study shows that the demonstration of the bla OXA-51-like gene is a reliable and rapid way for the presumptive identification of A. baumannii and reveals that the rate of antibiotic resistance is high in Iranian A. baumannii isolates to a variety of antibiotics.