In this paper a new dead-time-compensator to deal with unstable time delay systems is presented. The result is an extension to multiple-input multiple-output systems with multiple and different time delays of a previous result already reported for single-input single-output systems. There are two key issues: the system instability and the presence of different time delays in each signal channel. The proposed approach is developed in three steps. First, a non-delayed output plant is predicted. This predictor is a stable dead-time-compensator coping with multiple and arbitrary delays in all the signal channels. Then, a stabilizer controller is easily designed for the resulting non-delayed plant. For this stabilized plant, the control performance is improved in order to achieve some output tracking and regulation requirements. The results are illustrated by two examples showing their applicability to unstable multiple-input multiple-output multi-delayed plants, which is the main novelty of the proposed approach. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.