Water-soluble CdZnSe alloyed nanocrystals have been successfully prepared via "green" cation exchange reaction in aqueous system. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns indicate that the as-prepared nanocrystals had high crystallinity and small particle size of 4-5 nm. The absorption spectra of CdZnSe show red shift of 100 nm from 375 to 475 nm. Moreover, the band-gap photoluminescent (PL) emission has a red shift of 50 nm from 430 to 480 nm with the increase of the reaction time. On the basis of the PL properties and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images, one kind of core-shell-like structure model was proposed, which resulted from the different cation exchange reaction rates. This structure could greatly improve the luminescence properties by the removal of surface defect of quantum dots. This work would support potential applications in optoelectronic devices, and biomedical tags fields. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.