A facile and simple method for the preparation of gold nanoparticles dispersed in polymer matrix was successfully developed in this paper. The nanocomposites of polymer-gold nanoparticles were obtained by reduction of gold salt with polyacrylamide, and well-dispersed gold colloids stabilized by polyacrylamide immediately. Polyacrylamide acts as both stabilizer and reducing reagent. In addition, this novel route can be extended to the preparation of other noble metal-polymer nanocomposites such as silver, platinum and palladium and so on. The structure and composition of the obtained nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) absorption spectra. (c) 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.