A crossbar is implemented within multimedia facilities of a processor to perform vector permute operations, in which the bytes of a source operand are reordered in the target output. The crossbar is then reused for other instructions requiring multiplexing or shifting operations, particularly those in which the size of additional multiplexers or the size and delay of a barrel shifter is significant. A wide shift operation, for example, may be performed with one cycle latency by the crossbar and one additional layer of multiplexers or a small barrel shifter. The crossbar facility thus gets reused with improved performance of the instructions now sharing the crossbar and a reduction in the total area required by a multimedia facility within a processor.