In order to produce inexpensive, chemically diverse carbohydrate building blocks more amenable for use in combinatorial organic synthesis, amine and carboxylic acid functional groups were incorporated into several monosaccharides. A series of 12 new glycosamino acids was prepared from commercially available starting materials. Conventional peptide synthesis solution coupling techniques were used to ligate glycosamino acids, producing oligomeric "glycotides". Finally, a library of glycotides was produced by coupling of a glycosamino acid mixture to a rigid template.