In this study, carbon quantum dots and gold nanoparticles (CQDs/AuNPs) nanocomposite was synthesized for detection of antibiotic amikacin by using fluorescence signal. The method is based on fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between carbon quantum dots (CQDs) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), whereas the fluorescence emission of CQD was quenched by FRET-induced AuNPs. When amikacin was added to the CQDs/AuNPs system, due to high affinity between N-H groups in amikacin molecule and AuNPs, the strong combination of amikacin and AuNPs released the CQDs from the AuNPs and restore the CQD fluorescence. The CQDs/AuNPs system can detect amikacin in aqueous solution (pH 4.0, NaCl saline) sensitively (ppb level) with a short response time (2 min). The results show that the fluorescence recovery has a good linear relationship with amikacin concentration in the range of 10-7 M to 10-5 M. The developed method was applied for determination of antibiotic amikacin in pharmaceutical samples.