According to features of edge gradient maps of face images,a new eye feature extraction algorithm based on gradient vector flow field was proposed.A gradient vector flow field was computed iteratively by improving the iterative formula of gradient vector flow algorithm.Sink points in the gradient vector flow field will become candidate points of eyes.The proposed algorithm can tolerate such disturbances as slightly varying illumination,face rotation,closed eyes and eyes with glasses.It is proved that the new algorithm has the good ability to extract eye feature by experiments on the ORL face database with 400 face images.