The luminescence properties of aluminate sodalite Ca8[Ali2O24](WO4)2 (CAW) undoped and doped with Tb3+are reported and discussed.At room temperature the emission of tetrahedral WO24- in CAW showed an abnormally small Stokes shift (9060 cm-1),which is related to the crystal structure of CAW.A strong absorption band in the excitation spectrum of the Tb3+-activated CAW is ascribed to the absorption of the charge transfer state Tb4+-W5+,into which the excitation resulted in the efficient emission from the 5D4 level of Tb3+,but not from the 5D3level.