Functionalization of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) has attracted considerable interest in the fields of physics, chemistry, material science and biology. The functionalized CNTs exhibit improved properties enabling facile fabrication of novel nanomaterials and nanodevices. Most of the functionalization approaches developed at present could be categorized into the covalent attachment of functional groups and the non-covalent adsorption of various functional molecules onto the surface of CNTs. This review highlights recent development and our work in functionalization of carbon nanotubes, leading to bio-compatible CNTs, fluorescent CNTs and transition metal func-tionalizcd CNTs. These novel methods possess advantages such as simplified technical procedures and reduced cost of novel nanoma-terials and nanodcvices fabrication.