A concerted experimental (time-resolved spectroscopies) and computational (TDDFT) study of p-N,N-dimethylamino-p'-cyano-diphenylacetylene (DACN-DPA) has been carried out to probe the intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) reaction that occurs in polar solvents. The picosecond transient absorption, as well as fluorescence, in acetonitrile reveals the formation of a twisted ICT(sigma*) state, which involves transfer of an electron from the 4-(dimethylamino)-benzethyne moiety (DMAB) to the benzonitrile (BN) group. This ICT(sigma*) state, with a large dipole moment (24.7 D) and a geometry in which the plane of electron-accepting BN group is perpendicular to the plane electron-donating DMAB moiety and the angles of C(DMAB)C C is 135.0 degrees, is responsible for the greatly Stokes-shifted (similar to 8000 cm(-1)) fluorescence and the transient absorption bands (with peaks at about 630 and 425 nm), which decays with the same lifetime (similar to 780 ps). It is proposed that the 630 nm picosecond transient absorption of the ICT state represents the absorption spectrum of dimethylaminobenzethyne radical cation and the 425 nm transient represents the absorption spectrum of benzonitrile radical anion. In nonpolar n-hexane, most of the fluorescence as well as the major component of the transient absorption originate from the S-1 (pi pi*) state.