  We examine quintom dark energy models, produced by the combined consideration
of a canonical and a phantom field, with nearly flat potentials and dark energy
equation-of-state parameter $w_{DE}$ close to -1. We find that all such models
converge to a single expression for $w_{DE}(z)$, depending only on the initial
field values and their derivatives. We show that this quintom paradigm allows
for a description of the transition through -1 in the near cosmological past.
In addition, we provide the necessary conditions for the determination of the
direction of the -1-crossing.
