The invention provides a method for preparing carbon fibers from acrylic fibers. According to the method, the acrylic fibers are prepared by use of a dry-spraying wet spinning or wet spinning technique; the acrylic fibers are impregnated into an aqueous solution of ammonium acetate, ammonium formate, guanidine hydrochloride, ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid, triethylamine, urea, trimethylamine, dicyandiamide, normal hexyl amine, dihexylamine, cyanamide, amylamine, diethylamine, hexyldiamine, tert-butylamine or n-butylamine for modification for a certain time, and then dried, and finally, the acrylic fibers are pre-oxidized and carbonized to prepare the carbon fibers. Experiments prove that the modified acrylic fibers are capable of remarkably reducing the starting temperature of thermal stabilizing reaction of the acrylic fibers and expanding the exothermic peak, and therefore, the controllability of the pre-oxidation process can be improved, the low cost production of the carbon fibers is realized finally, and meanwhile, the strength and the elasticity modulus of the carbon fibers can be improved favorably to meet the requirements on the properties on the carbon fibers in the industrial areas.