Corn fiber is a by-product of fuel ethanol fermentation in a process employing a fractionation step such as the traditional wet-milling process or the newly developed enzymatic milling (E-milling) process.  This by-product has little value and normally is sold for use as an animal feed ingredient.  The value of corn fiber can be increased significantly by converting its carbohydrates to high value-added products such as astaxanthin.  Corn fiber can be hydrolyzed by a dilute acid under relatively mild conditions and enzymes to yield a mixture of monomeric sugars, which included glucose, xylose, arabinose and galactose.  Several strains of the astaxanthin-producing yeast Phaffia rhodozyma were tested for capability of metabolizing the corn fiber-derived sugars.  All strains tested were capable of metabolizing the two main sugars, glucose and xylose.  The strain with highest astaxanthin yield, ATCC 74219, was selected for further investigation.  First, the kinetics of mixed sugar utilization in synthetic media was studied.  Then corn fiber from an industrial source was hydrolyzed with dilute sulfuric acid and enzymes and the hydrolysate was used for astaxanthin production by the selected strain.  The results on the kinetic study and astaxanthin production from the corn fiber hydrolysate will be discussed.