A novel water-soluble ligand of N,bisdiglycolamide (TEE-BisDGA) was synthesized and used as a masking agent for selective extraction of Am(III) over Eu(III) from HNO3 solution by Nhexaoctylnitrilotriacetamide (NTAamide(C8)) in kerosene. Influences of acidity, concentration of water-soluble ligands and extractant on the distribution ratios (D) and separation factors (SF) of Am(III) and Eu(III) were investigated. In the range of examined acidity from 0.001 to 0.2 mol/L, DAm and DEu decreased with the increase of HNO3 concentration. Using 0.1 mol/L NTAamide(C8) as an extractant, the maximum SFAm/Eu of 26 can be obtained in the presence of 0.01 mol/L TEE-BisDGA in aqueous phase with pH of 3.0, which was significantly higher than that case with no TEE-BisDGA. Job's method and mole ratio method were employed for extraction mechanism research. It has been shown that Am(III) and Eu(III) formed di-solvated species with TEE-BisDGA and mono-solvated species with NTAamide(C8), © 2017. This manuscript version is made available under the Elsevier user license http://www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/ respectively. Moreover, the stability constants logβ values were obtained from UV-vis adsorption spectroscopic titration for Nd(III) complexes with TEE-BisDGA and N,N,N',N'-tetraethyldiglycolamide (TEDGA), which indicated that TEDGA had a stronger complex ability than TEE-BisDGA.