A simple, sensitive and selective colorimetric method is described for the assay of ampicillin, amoxicillin, cephalexin, cefadroxil and cefaclor in their pharmaceutical preparations. The method is based on measuring the color obtained when the alkaline degradation products of these agents are allowed to react with ascorbic acid. The factors affecting the color generation and determination were studied and optimized. The reaction is selective to β-lactam antibiotics having amino acid side-chains with free amino functions and thus allow interference-free quantitation of some preparations containing these agents in combination with other β-lactam agents. The procedure is also successfully adopted as stability-indicating method for cephalosporins. A tentative mechanism of the color reaction is proposed.