This paper proposes a globally exponentially stable (GES) observer for attitude estimation based on a single time-varying reference vector, in inertial coordinates, and corresponding vector, in body-fixed coordinates, in addition to angular velocity readings. The proposed solution is computationally efficient and, in spite of the fact that the observer does not evolve on the Special Orthogonal Group SO(3), an explicit solution on SO(3) is also provided, whose error is shown to converge exponentially fast to zero for all initial conditions. The distinct roles of the inertial and the corresponding body-fixed vectors on the observability of the system are also examined and simulation results are shown that illustrate the performance of the proposed attitude observer in the presence of low-grade sensor specifications. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.