Abstract: Objectives of this study were to develop a high performance liquid chromatography-photo diode array detection-mass spectrometry (HPLC-DAD-MS) method with atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) mode for qualitative and quantitative analyses of lutein and its ester derivatives.Lutein disuccinate, lutein monosuccinate and lutein could be identified according to the combined use of retention times, UV-visible absorption spectra and mass spectra.An accurate and reproducible C30-HPLC method of lutein disuccinate was achieved with a binary mobile phase consisting of 0.05% acetic acid in methanol -0.05% acetic acid in acetonitrile (50/50, v/v) in the linear range of 10⁵0μg/mL.This economical and effective method could be used to monitor its change during synthesizing, processing and storage.