Acarbose, a potent alpha-glucosidase inhibitor, is widely used as an oral anti-diabetic drug for the treatment of the type 2, non-insulin-dependent diabetes. In this work, a gel type strong acid cation exchange resin 001x4 was applied to isolate acarbose from fermentation broth. It was demonstrated that cation exchanger 001x4 displayed a large adsorption capacity and quick exchange rate for acarbose. The static adsorption equilibrium data were well fitted to the Langmuir equation. Column adsorption experiments demonstrated that high dynamic adsorption capacity was reached at bed height of 104.4 mm, feed flow rate of 1.0 ml.min(-1) and acarbose concentration of 4.0 mg.ml(-1). Under the optimized conditions, the column chromatography packed with cation exchanger 001x4 recovered 74.3% (by mass) of acarbose from Actinoplanes utahensis ZJB-08196 fermentation broth with purity of 80.1% (by mass), demonstrating great potential in the practical applications in acarbose separation.