Can't access root attribute!

[skydiverMN]

I've read a ton of things online but i'm still unable to access the attribute within my root. My root is called "Customers" and the attribute is called "id". While I can see the text details (and everything else too) in the innerXML but I can't query it and get a value. I've tried /root@id, root@id, /@id,.... always coming up empty. Here's one of the many tries below:

Dim xmlNav As XPathNavigator
        Dim xmlNI As XPathNodeIterator

        Dim sTemp As String

        Try
            xmlNav = xpathDoc.CreateNavigator()
            xmlNI = xmlNav.Select("root@id")

            sTemp = xmlNI.Current.GetAttribute("id", String.Empty)
        and so on....

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks!