This study was undertaken under varied environments to estimate the general and specific combining ability of different female and male lines in cross combinations for important economic traits and estimate heterosis for developing superior hybrids. The 45 hybrids and their parents were evaluated at four environments: two different planting dates. The obtained data showed, highly significant differences among parents, F1 crosses and parents versus crosses over all environments. An evaluation of general combining ability variance components as estimated from male and/or female across environments were larger than those of specific combining ability for days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, plant height, primary branches/plant and secondary branches/plant indicating the presence of additive gene action. However, opposite results were obtained for pods/plant, seeds/pod, 100 seed weight and seed yield/plant. The line ICPA 2089 and testers ICPL 161, ICPL 88039, ICPAL 88034 and ICPL 81-3 were found desirable general combiners for days to flowering and maturity. While ICPL 20093, ICPL 161, ICPL 20108 and ICPL 20177 best general combiners for seed yield and its component traits. For seed yield, ICPA 2047 × ICPL 20128 and ICPA 2089 × ICPL 20166 were the best specific combinations with higher per se performance values. The cross, ICPA 2047 × ICPL 20128 found to be best specific combiner for flowering and yield traits. The best hybrids based on heterotic values were ICPA 2047 × ICPL 20128 and ICPA 2047 × ICPL 20177. These two hybrids surpassed standard check in their performance for most of the yield and its related traits and after adequate testing across locations, these hybrids can be recommended for commercial exploitation for pigeonpea production.