This paper aims to explore whether and how CEO political connections affect the duration of cross-border acquisition deals involving emerging-market acquirers. Drawing upon the human capital theory and institutional theory, this study proposes CEO political connections as the human capital for the strategic resources of the emerging-market acquirers to fill institutional voids. Using the Heckman selection model, the hypotheses were tested with cross-border acquisitions by Chinese acquirers from 2011 to 2016. The results show that acquisition deals take less time to complete for acquirer CEOs with political connections than for acquirer CEOs without political connections. Moreover, high marketization of the home region and high governance quality of the host country weaken the negative association between CEO political connections and acquisition duration.