In this paper, we study the distributed containment control problem for networked Lagrangian systems with multiple dynamic leaders in the presence of parametric uncertainties under a directed graph that characterizes the interaction among the leaders and the followers. We propose a distributed adaptive control algorithm combined with distributed sliding-mode estimators. A necessary and sufficient condition on the directed graph is presented such that all followers converge to the dynamic convex hull spanned by the dynamic leaders asymptotically. As a byproduct, we show a necessary and sufficient condition on leaderless consensus for networked Lagrangian systems under a directed graph. Numerical simulation results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithms. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.