A robust adaptive control scheme is proposed for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems in strict feedback form with both unknown control directions and non-symmetric dead-zone nonlinearity based on backstepping design.The conditions that the dead-zone slopes and the boundaries are equal and symmetric are removed by simplifying nonlinear dead-zone input model,the assumption that the priori knowledge of the control directions to be known is eliminated by utilizing Nussbaum-type gain technique and neural networks (NN) approximation capability.The possible controller singularity problem and the effect of dead-zone input nonlinearity are avoided perfectly by combining integral Lyapunov design with sliding mode control strategy.All the signals in the closed-loop system are guaranteed to be semi-globally uniformly ultimately bounded and the tracking error of the system is proven to be converged to a small neighborhood of the origin.Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.