We study the quasilinear elliptic equation -div(phi(vertical bar del u vertical bar)del u) = a(x) f (u) + b(x) g(u) in Omega with Dirichlet boundary condition u = 0 on partial derivative Omega, where Omega is a bounded domain in R(N), a(x), b(x) are sign-changing continuous functions, and g(u) has critical growth at infinity with respect to the principal part phi. A nonnegative, nontrivial solution is given under appropriate growth conditions on f (u), g(u) at 0 and infinity. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.