A facile, efficient, racemization-free, and environment friendly protocol for the synthesis of peptide hydroxamic acids directly from carboxylic/amino acids by ethyl 2-(tert-butoxycarbonyloxyimino)-2-cyanoacetate in the presence of DIPEA/DMAP at room temperature is described. The compatibility of this method with Fmoc based solid phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) is also demonstrated by synthesizing three relatively large N-terminal peptide hydroxamic acids on resin. Also, some biologically important hydroxamates are synthesized using this protocol.