The treatment of Cp3Ln with 1 equiv of N,N′-dicyclohexyl-N′′-phenylguanidine followed by reacting with butyllithium yields a series of novel guanidinate dianion complexes of heterobimetallic lanthanide−lithium with formula Cp2Ln[(CyN)2CNPh]Li(THF)3 (Ln = Yb (1a), Er (1b), Y (1c), Dy (1d)). Reactivities of these dianionic guanidinate complexes toward various electrophiles have been investigated. Reaction of 1 with Me2RSiCl produced tetrasubstituted guanidinate monoanion complexes Cp2Ln[(CyN)2CN(Ph)SiRMe2] ((R = Me, Ln = Yb (2a), Er (2b), Y (2c); R =
t
Bu, Ln = Yb (3a), Er (3b)), indicating that the Li−N bond is preferred to couple with chlorosilanes. In contrast, the regioselective functionalization of the NCy group bonded to the lanthanide ion was achieved by reaction of 1a with Me2SiCl2 to produce Me2Si(CyN)2CNPh (4) and Cp2YbCl(THF) (5). Significantly, treatment of 1d with PhCOCl leads to the cleavage of one C−N bond of the dianionic guanidinate, giving the acylamino complex [Cp2Dy(OC(Ph)NCy)]2 (6). These results have shown that the active site of the dianionic guanidinate ligand is tunable due to the delocalization of the two negative charges on the three N atoms. All the compounds were characterized by elemental analysis and spectroscopic methods. The structures of compounds 1−6 are also determined through X-ray single-crystal diffraction analysis.