A new class of chelating polymers using Amberlite XAD-16 (AXAD-16) modified with (N-(3,4-dihydroxy)benzyl)-4-amino,3-hydroxynapthalene-1-sulphonic acid has been developed based on dual mechanism bifunctional polymers, for the extraction of transition and post-transition metal ions. The optimum pH conditions for the quantitative sorption of metal ions were studied. The developed method showed superior extraction qualities with high metal loading capacities of 71, 85, 182, 130 and 46 mg g-1 for Ni(II), Cd(II), Pb(II), Cu(II) and Co(II), respectively. The rate of metal ion uptake i.e. kinetics studies performed under optimum levels showed a time duration of < 5 min except for Co(II) which required 20 min, for complete metal ion saturation. Desorption of metal ions were effective with 15 ml of 2 M HCl/HNO3 prior to detection using flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The chelating polymer was highly ion-selective in nature even in the presence of large concentrations of alkali and alkaline earth metal ions, with a high preconcentrating ability for the metal ions of interest. The developed chelating matrix was tested on its utility with synthetic and real samples like river/sea/tap/well water samples and also with multivitamin/ mineral tablets, showed R.S.D. values of < 2.5% reflecting on the accuracy and reproducibility of data using the newly developed resin matrix. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.