 <p>In iOS 5 you can use the UIAppearance protocol to set the appearance of all UINavigationBars in your app. Reference: <a href="http://developer.apple.com/library/IOs/#documentation/UIKit/Reference/UIAppearance_Protocol/Reference/Reference.html#//apple_ref/occ/intf/UIAppearance">link</a>.</p> <p>The way I got a solid color was to create a custom image for the navigation bar, and set it as UINavigationBars background. You might have to create the image with the same size as the UINavigationBar, at least that's what I did.</p> <p>In your app delegate, do something like this:</p> <pre><code>UIImage *image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"navbarbg.png"]; [[UINavigationBar appearance] setBackgroundImage:image forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault]; </code></pre> <p>You also have to add the <code>UIAppearanceContainer</code> protocol to the header file:</p> <pre><code>@interface AppDelegate : UIResponder &lt;UIApplicationDelegate, UIAppearanceContainer&gt; @end </code></pre> <p>You can probably achieve the same thing by setting some color or something, instead of an image. But I found this to be an easy solution.</p>