A novel analytical method was developed for the determination of aliphatic amines(e.g.methylamine，ethylamine and propylamine) without ultraviolet absorption by high performance liquid chromatography-indirect ultraviolet detection.Chromatographic separation was performed on a reversed-phase C18 column using 4 aminophenol hydrochloride-organic solvent as mobile phase.Effects of the background ultraviolet absorption reagents，organic solvents and 4-aminophenol hydrochloride on separation and determination of aliphatic amines were investigated.The retention rules of aliphatic amines under different chromatographic conditions were formulated.The successful separation of three aliphatic amines was achieved in 14 min by using 0.5 mmol/L 4-aminophenol hydrochloride (pH 4.0)-methanol(80∶20) as mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min and a column temperature of 30 ℃.The detection limits of three aliphatic amines were 0.38，0.59,0.81 mg/L，respectively.The method was successfully applied in the determination of environmental water samples with recoveries of 97.8%-99.1% and relative standard deviations no more than 1.8%.The method was simple，accurate and reliable.