  We investigate the quintom model of dark energy in the generalized case where
the corresponding canonical and phantom fields possess O($N$) symmetries.
Assuming exponential potentials we find that this O$(N)$ quintom paradigm
exhibits novel properties comparing to the simple canonical and phantom
scenarios. In particular, we find that the universe cannot result in a
quintessence-type solution with $w>-1$, even in the cases where the phantom
field seems to be irrelevant. On the contrary, there are always late-time
attractors which correspond to accelerating universes with $w<-1$ and with a
recent crossing of the phantom divide, and for a very large area of the
parameter space they are the only ones. This is in contrast with the previous
simple-quintom results, where an accelerating universe is a possible late-time
stable solution but it is not guaranteed.
