Montane species are generally predicted to respond to climate change via upslope movement. In birds, these potential elevational range shifts have primarily been examined in tropical regions. Although desert bird species may be at the edge of their aridity tolerances, elevational range shifts of desert bird species rarely have been studied. Here, we examine shifts in the elevational distributions of breeding birds from two regions of the Great Basin, a desert in the western United States, over 10 to 20 years. We collected data annually from 2001-2020, a relatively long time series that is uncommon in research on distributional shifts. We used single-species occupancy models of 32 bird species to examine elevational shifts at three extents: the full elevational gradient (1650-3200 m) and the lowest and highest edges (25%) of the gradient. We then conducted simulations to test whether population stochasticity could confound inferences about shifts. We examined whether temperature, precipitation, and primary productivity (normalized difference vegetation index) were associated with occupancy and shifts. The elevational distributions of 19 species shifted, and simulations indicated that shifts in the distributions of 12 species were unlikely to be stochastic. The three shifts along the full elevational gradient were downslope, and the majority of distributional shifts occurred at the elevational range edges. Occupancy of 10 species with elevational distributions that shifted was associated significantly with precipitation, and 8 of those associations were negative. Although we found that climate changed considerably even over the short temporal extent of our study, our results suggested that this community of desert birds is relatively resilient to the direct effects of climate change.