This paper investigates the synchronization problem for a class of uncertain chaotic systems. Only partial information of the system states is known. An adaptive sliding mode observer-based slave system is designed to synchronize a given chaotic master system with unknown parameters and external disturbances. Based on the Lyapunov stability theorem, the global synchronization between the master and slave systems is ensured. Furthermore, the structure of the slave system is simple and the proposed adaptive sliding mode observer-based synchronization scheme can be implemented without requiring a priori knowledge of upper bounds on the norm of the uncertainties and external disturbances. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed scheme. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society