Ambient curable carbonyl functional acrylic latices were synthesized by incorporating diacetone acrylamide as functional monomer into acrylic copolymer, adipic acid dihydrazide (ADH) was used as curing agent. In this work acrylic acid (AA) and acrylic acid homopolymer (PAA) were used to facilitate the crosslinking reaction. We found that the properties of latex film were different when use AA and PAA as the source of the carboxyl groups separately. The results from the characterization of carboxyl groups of the latex particles demonstrated that the distribution of the carboxyl group on the latex particle surface is optimal for the crosslinking reaction. (C) 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.