It can probably be done, but I can't think of a solution off the top of my head.However, it seems that you're using the DOM to store model data (your list of users). It will probably be simpler if you keep that list on a ClojureScript atom for example. Then you would check if a user is in that list, and if not, you could just add it with something like (not tested)...(ef/at ".tabs" (ef/append (ef/html [:div.tab {:id "username"}])))