Molecular iodine catalyzes acetalation and acetylation ofreducing sugars and sugar glycosides with stoichiometricamounts of enol acetates under solvent-free conditions,thereby facilitating the synthesis of various types of orthogonally protected sugar derivatives in short time and goodyields. The outcome of the reaction can be controlled byvariation in temperature. Thus at lower temperature, it ispossible to obtain the acetonide acetate as a single productwhereas peracetate is the major product at higher temperature.