Objective　To simplify the National Standard Method for determination of sulfate in drinking water.Methods　A series of improved experiments on barium chromate spectrophotometry without heating and the experiments of precision and accuracy,as well as comparison of experimental data between the improved method and the National Standard Method were carried out.Results　 The detection limit,detectable range,recovery rate,coefficient of variation of the improved method were 5.0 mg/L,5～200 mg/L,97.3%～101.8% ,1.09%～4.18% respectively,which revealed no significant differences compared with those of the National Standard Method (P＞0.05).Conclusion　The improved method for determination of sulfate in drinking water was simple,rapid and presented high sensitivity,accurate and reliable results and good practicality.