Results pertaining to the development of highly dispersible stand-alone particles of Ce 3+ -doped Y 3 Al 5 O 12 nanophosphor and their luminescence are presented. The yellow light-emitting nanophosphor was produced as a result of a single-step auto-combustion process, which requires no auxiliary annealing treatments prior to any practical application. The structure, photoluminescence, and chromaticity of the powder nanophosphor samples with the compositions Y ͑3−x͒ Al 5 O 12 : xCe 3+ ͑x = 0.01-1͒ are featured in the letter. The nanophosphor absorbs light efficiently in the visible region of 400-500 nm, and shows single broadband emission peaking at ϳ560 nm. The luminescence yield is almost analogous to the samples made from other conventional methods. Hence, it could be an apt candidate for generating white light when coupled to a blue light-emitting diode ͑ em = 450 nm͒.