In this paper, a variational iteration method (VIM), which is a well-known method for solving nonlinear equations, has been employed to solve an inverse parabolic partial differential equation. Inverse problems in partial differential equations can be used to model many real problems in engineering and other physical sciences. The VIM is to construct correction functional using general Lagrange multipliers identified optimally via the variational theory.This method provides a sequence of function which converges to the exact solution of the problem. This technique does not require any discretization, linearization or small perturbations and therefore reduces the numerical computations a lot. Numerical examples are examined to show the efficiency of the technique.