By Karamata regular variation theory and constructing comparison functions, we show the exact asymptotic behaviour of the unique classical solution u ∈ C 2 (Ω) ∩ C(Ω) near the boundary to a singular Dirichlet problem −∆u = k(x)g(u), u > 0, x ∈ Ω, u| ∂Ω = 0, where Ω is a bounded domain with smooth boundary in R N ; g ∈ C 1 ((0, ∞), (0, ∞)), lim t→0 + g(ξ t) g(t) = ξ −γ , for each ξ > 0, for some γ > 0; and k ∈ C α loc (Ω) for some α ∈ (0, 1), is nonnegative on Ω, which is also singular near the boundary. 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.