A novel, practical and efficient enantioselective synthesis of sphingoid bases,l-threo-[2S,3S]-sphinganine (safingol),l-threo-[2S,3S]-sphingosine,l-arabino-[2R,3S,4R] andl-xylo-[2R,3S,4S]-C18-phytosphingosine is described. The synthetic strategy features the Sharpless kinetic resolution and tethered aminohydroxylation as the key steps.