•The framework for developing NSRs in the health care system of Iran includes the following components: role titles, prioritization of the necessary specialties, the necessary competencies of nurses at specialist level, the scope of nursing specialist practice, expected authorizations, requirements for role development, and its barriers and facilitators.•This framework can be considered as the basis for developing the roadmap for NSR development in Iran. Such framework needs to be precisely described based on the characteristics of each country and its health care delivery system.•This study provides a deep insight into the framework for NSR development in the health care system of Iran. Policy-makers, decision-makers, legislators, and managers can use the results of this study to develop an appropriate roadmap for NSR development.•The NSR development framework developed in this study can be used in other countries for nursing specialization.•Developing NSRs can improve the quality and the efficiency of nursing care services and thereby, improve the quality of health care services. A key step to the development of a roadmap for developing nursing specialist roles is to create its framework based on the immediate context. This study aimed to create the framework for developing nursing specialist roles in the health care system of Iran. This was a descriptive qualitative study. A purposeful sample of 81 nursing and nonnursing experts was recruited. The directed content analysis approach was used for data analysis. The framework for developing nursing specialist roles in the health care system include eight main categories. These categories are role titles, prioritization of the necessary specialties, the necessary competencies of nurses at specialist level, the scope of nursing specialist practice, expected authorizations, requirements for role development, and its barriers and facilitators. Creating a context-based framework for nursing specialist role development based on the characteristics of each country is recommended.