This paper describes a general theoretical framework that combines non‐Fourier (NF) spatially‐encoded MRI with multichannel acquisition parallel MRI. The two spatial‐encoding mechanisms are physically and analytically separable, which allows NF encoding to be expressed as complementary to the inherent encoding imposed by RF receiver coil sensitivities. Consequently, the number of NF spatial‐encoding steps necessary to fully encode an FOV is reduced. Furthermore, by casting the FOV reduction of parallel imaging techniques as a dimensionality reduction of the k‐space that is NF‐encoded, one can obtain a speed‐up of each digital NF spatial excitation in addition to accelerated imaging. Images acquired at speed‐up factors of 2× to 8× with a four‐element RF receiver coil array demonstrate the utility of this framework and the efficiency afforded by it. Magn Reson Med 52:321–328, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.