A series of phosphono-modified backbone mimics based on achiral and chiral N-(dihydroxypropyl)glycine units were obtained by sequential addition of phosphonate and nucleobase moieties to suitably protected dihydroxypropylamines. Simple synthetic strategies enabled the preparation of various target derivatives that will be useful as building blocks for the preparation of new synthetic polymers containing a phosphonate internucleotide linkage in place of the standard phosphodiester bond.