A new chiral diketonate ligand based on carvone binds early lanthanides. The Eu complex displays high circularly polarized (g_lum = 0.82) red luminescence under near-UV excitation in the solid state. This is the first report on such CPL activity in the solid state with a rigorous protocol to exclude artifacts. Paramagnetic NMR spectroscopy revealed the nature and structure of the active species.