Abstract Due to the growing expanse of applications and research involving nanoparticles, silver particle technology has found specific uses exploiting silver's antimicrobial and surface chemistry properties in the fields of biotechnology and consumer products. The increase in applications for these particles has demanded smaller, better dispersed, and lower cost materials to be employed in these and related fields. In the novel method of silver nanoparticle synthesis presented here, the polysaccharide Dextran is utilized as both a dispersant and a reducing agent to synthesize biocompatible silver particles with a narrow size distribution. The sizes of these particles are able to be adjusted from a few nanometers to tens of nanometers. Reaction products are analyzed and characterized by Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), and light scattering techniques. This simple method for the production of uniform silver nanoparticles has promising potential in many prevalent applications including consumer products and biotechnology. The system is easily scaleable and amicable towards the environment.