A high-performance centrifugal partition chromatography (HPCPC) method was developed for the preparative separation of patchouli alcohol. The separation was performed with a nonaqueous two-phase solvent system consisting of petroleum ether (bp.30–60°C)-acetonitrile (1:1, v/v) in descending separation mode. A total of more than 2 g of patchouli alcohol was isolated from the essential oil (12.5 g) in 300 min. This component was separated and identified by comparing its retention time and MS data with the standard substance analyzed by GC/MS. The purity was more than 98%. About 450 mL petroleum ether and 550 mL acetonitrile were used for a single run, and 60% and 80% of petroleum ether and acetonitrile could be recovered for next run, respectively.