This paper deals with adaptive control of a class of nonlinear systems with a triangular structure and nonlinear parameterization. In Kojic et al. [(Systems Control Lett. 37 (1999) 267)] it was shown that a class of second-order nonlinearly parameterized systems can be adaptively controlled in a globally stable manner. In this paper. we extend our approach to all nth order systems that have a triangular structure. Global boundedness and convergence to within a desired precision epsilon is established for both regulation and tracking. Extensions to cascaded systems containing linear dynamics and static nonlinearities are also presented.