The electrochemiluminescent behavior of lucigenin on a single-wall carbon nanotube/DMF film-modified glassy carbon electrode was studied in this paper. Comparing with the bare glassy carbon electrode, the electrochemiluminescent of lucigenin at modified electrode is more stable and without tedious procedure for clean-up the surface of modified electrode. It has been found that ascorbic acid could enhance the electrochemiluminescent intensity of lucigenin greatly at this modified electrode. Based on which, a new sensitive and simple electrochemiluminescent method for determination of ascorbic acid could be developed. The condition for the determination of ascorbic acid was optimized. Under the optimized condition. the enhanced electrochemiluminescent intensity versus ascorbic acid concentration was linear in the range of 1.0 x 10(-8) to 4.0 x 10(-6) mol/L with a detection limit of 2.0 x 10(-10) mol/L, and the relative standard derivation for 1.0 x 10(-7) mol/L ascorbic acid was 3.8% (n = 8). The possible mechanism was also discussed. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.