A method was developed for the determination of nucleotides in infant formula milk powder by ion chromatography (IC). The separation was performed on an IonPac AS16 column with KOH solution as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min and 25 degrees C. The detection wavelength was set at 260 nm and the sample injection volume was 25 microL. There were good linear relationships between the mass concentrations and the peak areas of cytidine monophosphate (CMP), adenosine monophosphate (AMP), uridine monophosphate (UMP), inosine monophosphate (IMP) and guanosine monophosphate (GMP) in the ranges of 0.09-50, 0.06-50, 0.06-50, 0.09-50, 0.06-50 mg/L, respectively. The limits of detection (S/N = 3) of CMP, AMP, UMP, IMP and GMP were 0.03, 0.02, 0.02, 0.03 and 0.02 mg/L, respectively. The method has been applied for the determination of the five nucleotides in infant formula milk powder with the recoveries of 92.5%-102.4%. This method is rapid, simple and suitable for the determination of real samples.