This article explores the synthesis of styrene-divinylbenzene resins with different surface areas and the influence of these surface areas on their performance in the solid-phase extraction of polar compounds from water samples. As expected, increasing the surface areas increases the retention capability of polar compounds. To improve the retention properties, we have used 4-vinylpyridine instead of styrene in the polymerization and evaluated the influence of the sorbent polarity and surface area on the retention properties. We have found that a compromise is required between the percentage of 4-vinylpyridine, which increases the polarity of the sorbent, and the percentage of divinylbenzene, which increases the surface area. In the solid-phase extraction of polar compounds, the results are best for a polymer containing 2.14% N and having a surface area of 710 m(2)/g. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.