"I want to be clear: The American forces that have been deployed to Iraq do not and will not have a combat mission," Mr Obama said.
Iraq's new prime minister Haider al-Abadi also ruled out the return of American forces, calling the prospect "out of the question".
Mr Obama's speech at the headquarters of US Central Command, the military division responsible for the Middle East, came as US law enforcement warned of the threat from Isil to Americans.
James Comey, the director of the FBI, said Isil was likely to seek more hostages like journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff to use as leverage against the West.
"Isil and other foreign terrorist organizations may continue to try to capture American hostages in an attempt to force the US government and people into making concessions," he said.
Mr Comey noted that Isil had stepped up its intensive online propaganda efforts since US airstrikes began, including a video threatening to target the White House.
US prosecutors on Tuesday charged a 30-year-old US citizen in New York with recruiting fighters to travel to Syria and plotting to murder American troops returning from the Middle East.
According to court documents, Mufid Elfgeeh bought pistols with silencers from an FBI informant with the intention of mimicking the 2013 shooting rampage in Toulouse that killed three French troops.
The FBI said Elfgeeh also tried to help three men go to Syria to join the fight alongside the jihadists.
Mr Obama was briefed at the Florida headquarters of Central Command by General Lloyd Austin, the US commander in charge of the campaign against Isil.
Speaking at a US Senate hearing on Tuesday, Gen Dempsey admitted that Gen Austin was one of the commanders who had suggested using ground troops in Iraq to guide American airstrikes.
Mr Obama's Democratic allies recoiled at the prospect of deploying ground troops and the New York Times ran an angry editorial declaring: "There is no way to read this other than as a reversal from the firm commitment Mr. Obama made not to immerse the country in another endless ground war in the Middle East."
Iraq's prime minister said US ground troops were not necessary or welcome in his country.
"We don't want them. We won't allow them. Full stop," Mr al-Abadi told the Associated Press.
But some US commanders are doubtful that the Iraqi military or the moderate Syrian rebels have the skill and determination to take and hold the ground cleared by American airstrikes.
Of the 50 Iraqi brigades assessed by US military advisors, half were found to have problems with leadership, sectarianism or infiltration by Shia partisans.
Syria's rebels are badly outnumbered and outgunned by the jihadists and under pressure from Syrian government forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad.
Assad's fighter jets have launched a wave of airstrikes against the rebel-held town of Talbisseh in recent days, killing 50 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Mr Obama said the campaign "will not be America's fight alone" and vowed the US would "lead a broad coalition of countries".
The President said more than 40 countries had offered assistance but did not specific which, if any, would join the US in air strikes against the jihadists.
However, he said the US had the "unique capability" the mobilise the world against Isil.
"When the world is threatened, when the world needs help, it calls on America."
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