In this paper, a robust adaptive controller is proposed for trajectory tracking of robot manipulators with the unknown friction coefficient and bounded disturbance. A new adaptive control law is developed based on sliding mode and derived from the Lyapunov stability analysis. The introduction of a boundary layer solves the problem of chattering. The proposed adaptive controller is globally asymptotically stable and guarantees zero steady state error for joint positions. The estimated friction coefficients can also approach the actual coefficients asymptotically. A simulation example is provided to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm.