An embodiment of the invention is a virtual machine monitor that is executable by computer processor. The virtual machine monitor runs a virtual processor. When the virtual processor encounters a faulting instruction the virtual processor is unmapped from the physical processor, and generates a list of other physical processors that could execute the instruction. The virtual machine monitor determines if one of the other of the physical processors in the list is currently idle, and when one of the other of the physical processors in the list is determined to be currently idle, the virtual processor is mapped to a second physical processor, which is the one of the other of the physical processors in the list that was determined to be currently idle.