In this work, a novel strategy for surface modification of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was developed via combination of mussel inspired chemistry and chain transfer free radical polymerization. First, pristine CNTs were functionalized with polydopamine (PDA), which is formed via self-polymerization of dopamine in alkaline conditions. These PDA functionalized CNTs can be further reacted with amino-terminated polymers (named as PDMC), which was synthesized through chain transfer free radical polymerization using cysteamine hydrochloride as chain transfer agent and methacryloxyethyltrimethyl ammonium chloride as the monomer. PDMC perfectly conjugated with CNT-PDA was ascertained by a series of characterization techniques including transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The dispersibility of obtained CNT nanocomposites (named as CNT-PDA-PDMC) was further examined. Results showed that the dispersibility of CNT-PDA-PDMC in aqueous and organic solutions was obviously enhanced. Apart from PDMC, many other amino-terminated polymers can also be used to functionalization of CNTs via similar strategy. Therefore, the method described in this work should be a general strategy for fabrication various polymer nanocomposites. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.