This paper presents a new method to synchronize different chaotic systems with disturbances via an active radial basis function (RBF) sliding controller. This method incorporates the advantages of active control, neural network and sliding mode control. The main part of the controller is given based on the output of the RBF neural networks and the weights of these single layer networks are tuned on-line based on the sliding mode reaching law. Only several radial basis functions are required for this controller which takes the sliding mode variable as the only input. The proposed controller can make the synchronization error converge to zero quickly and can overcome external disturbances. Analysis of the stability for the controller is carried out based on the Lyapunov stability theorem. Finally, five examples are given to illustrate the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed synchronization control strategy.