This study examines the roles of the tropospheric large-scale forcing, surface sensible and latent heat fluxes and convective inhibition in the diurnal variation of convection in the U.S. Southern Great Plains using data from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program. It is shown that the diurnal variation of the tropospheric large-scale forcing has a strong in-phase relationship with convection, whereas the diurnal variations of surface sensible and latent heat fluxes as well as the thermodynamic properties of the near-surface air are nearly out of phase with that of convection. Both the single column version and the full global model of the NCAR CCM3 are used to test the roles of the tropospheric and boundary layer forcing in the observed diurnal variation of convection. When convection is parameterized based on the tropospheric large-scale forcing, the diurnal variation of convection is in good agreement with the observations.