Drought stress is one of the most important constraints affecting maize growth and development and therefore resulting in yield loss. Thus，it is essential to understand molecular mechanisms of drought stress responses in maize and excavate excellent drought-tolerant germplasms and genes for drought tolerance improvement. In our previous studies which based on the transcriptomic comparison of two maize inbred lines with contrasting drought tolerance，a member of HD-Zip transcription factor family，Zmhdz6，was obtained as an important candidate gene for drought tolerance. In the present study，we conducted a functional analysis of Zmhdz6. The phylogenetic analysis of HD-Zip family in maize showed that Zmhdz6 had closer relationship with Zmhdz4，which has proven could improve drought tolerance of transgenic plants. The expression of Zmhdz6 was induced by drought and ABA treatment. The coding sequence of Zmhdz6 in H082183 and Lv28 occurred five SNPs causing three amino acid differences，but all of the SNPs were not in HD or LZ domains. The transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana L. overexpressing Zmhdz6 showed smaller blades，shorter plants and enhanced drought tolerance. These results indicated that Zmhdz6 is an important and potentially valuable gene for the improvement of drought tolerance in maize. Therefore，this study provides theoretical support and genetic resource for droughttolerant maize breeding.