A sensitive and selective liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometric (LC-MS/MS) method was developed and validated for the determination of beta,beta-dimethylacrylshikonin (DASK) in rat whole blood. DASK was pretreated using pre-column derivatization with 2-mercaptoethanol followed by liquid-liquid extraction with cyclohexane. Detection was performed on Thermo Finnigan TSQ Quantum triple quadrupole mass spectrometer by selected reaction monitoring mode via electrospray ionization source. The linear range for the determination of DASK spiked in rat whole blood (0.25 mL) was 3-3000 ng/mL. The accuracy was within 9%. Intra- and inter-day precisions were no more than 16.1 and 13.3%, respectively. The validated LC-MS/MS method was successfully applied to the preliminary pharmacokinetic study in rats. After DASK administration (60 mg/kg, p.o.) in rats, pharmacokinetic parameters were obtained, where the area under the drug concentration-time curve was 2393.7 +/- 224.4 ng h/mL and the elimination half-life was 27.6 +/- 5.3 h.