Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been mass produced and widely used as fillers for advanced supercapacitor/battery electrodes and lightweight high-strength composites. Well dispersion of CNTs in the matrix is a key issue to achieve high performance composites. Developing an easy and efficient strategy to disperse CNTs in a resource-saving and environmentally benign way, especially for agglomerated CNTs, is a great challenge. Mass produced ductile and resilient multi-walled CNTs were dispersed in bismaleimide (BMI) resin by a simple high pressure homogenization process. A CNT/BMI composite with a CNT content as high as 38 wt.% was fabricated under high pressure (240 MPa) during thermal curing. The compression modulus and hardness of the composite approach to 8.5 and 0.58 GPa, corresponding to a 28.9% and 44.0% improvement compared to neat BMI resin, respectively, which reveals the feasibility of such CNTs as fillers for strong composites. This text provides a simple, efficient, and economic powder technology to directly disperse granular CNTs in matrix for advanced composites. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.