A novel water-assisted chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method for the efficient synthesis of boron nitride (BN) nanotubes is demonstrated. The replacement of metal oxide by water vapor could continuously generate intermediate boron oxide vapor and enhance the production of BN nanotubes. The nanotubes synthesized when an appropriate amount of water vapor was introduced had an average diameter of about 80 nm and lengths of several hundred μm. The diameter and yield of nanotubes could be controlled by tuning the amount of water vapor. This simple water-assisted CVD approach paves a new path to the fabrication of BN nanotubes in large quantities.