In this paper, the finite-time tracking problem is investigated for a nonholonomic wheeled mobile robot in a fifth-order dynamic model. We consider the whole tracking error system as a cascaded system. Two continuous global finite-time stabilizing controllers are designed for a second-order subsystem and a third-order subsystem respectively. Then finite-time stability results for cascaded systems are employed to prove that the closed-loop system satisfies the finite-time stability. Thus the closed-loop system can track the reference trajectory in finite-time when the desired velocities satisfy some conditions. In particular, we discuss the control gains selection for the third-order finite-time controller and give sufficient conditions by using Lyapunov and backstepping techniques. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society