The North Icelandic Jet (NIJ) is a significant contributor to the lower limb of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, supplying one-third to one-half of the overflow water transport through Denmark Strait, including the densest portion. Dense water produced in the Nordic Seas is banked up along the slope north of Iceland and can flow relatively unimpeded across the Denmark Strait sill as part of the NIJ. Major uncertainties remain regarding the mechanisms contributing to the emergence of the NIJ northeast of Iceland. This study investigates these mechanisms using a novel setup with a high-resolution, idealized model for the north Icelandic slope. Initially, we set up a channel model along the slope north of Iceland with differing slope geometry, no external forcing, and horizontally uniform initial and boundary conditions based on observations. Subsequently, we iteratively impose highly idealized inflows and outflows as boundary conditions in the west, emulating the North Icelandic Irminger Current (NIIC) inflow and dense NIJ outflow through Denmark Strait. The model consistently replicates key features of the NIJ, such as its mid-depth intensified core associated with diverging isopycnals away from the slope. Our results corroborate that a steeper slope, a stronger NIIC-like current, and stronger cross-slope density gradients promote instabilities closely related to the emerging NIJ-like current. Furthermore, the variability of the models’ NIJ-like current is largely associated with passing eddies, which might explain some of the observed occupations where the NIJ features a double-core structure.