Hard carbon films can be prepared by the condensation of energetic carbon species at and below room temperature. These hydrogen-free films are primarily tetrahedrally coordinated and contain high fractions of sp(3) bonding. Field emission from these and other forms of carbon has been considered previously, but it was generally unstable or based on surface treatments that limit their operating conditions. We report electron emission from amorphous carbon-cesium (a-C:Cs) thin films at applied fields as low as 7 V/mu m. This emission characteristic is relatively insensitive to surface treatment; films left under ambient laboratory environment for more than six months show these favorable characteristics with no pretreatment. We describe the fabrication process and emission properties of these films.