A zebra is born with only half his stripes into an insular, superstitious herd. Khumba (Jake T. Austin) is immediately ostracized by all the zebras except for his parents and, Tombi (AnnaSophia Robb) a feisty tomboy. In the midst of a drought, a mystical mantis appears to him and draws a map to the legendary waterhole in which the first zebras bathed in and came out striped. When Khumba is blamed for the lack of rain and the subsequent death of his mother, the outcast zebra leaves the confines of his home in search of the waterhole.