Methods and apparatuses provide for referencing thread local variables (TLVs) with techniques such as stack address mapping. A method may involve a head pointer that points to a set of thread local variables (TLVs) of a thread. A method according to one embodiment may include an operation for storing the head pointer in a global data structure in a user space of a processing system. The head pointer may subsequently be retrieved from the global data structure and used to access one or more TLVs associated with the thread. In one embodiment, the head pointer is retrieved without executing any kernel system calls. In an example embodiment, the head pointer is stored in a global array, and a stack address for the thread is used to derive an index into the array. Other embodiments are described and claimed.