For a vehicle Anti-lock Braking System (ABS), the control target is to maintain friction coefficients within maximum range to ensure minimum stopping distance and vehicle stability. But in order to achieve a directionally stable maneuver, tire side forces must be considered along with the braking friction. Focusing on combined braking and turning operation conditions, this paper presents a new control scheme for an ABS controller design, which calculates optimal target wheel slip ratio on-line based on vehicle dynamic states and prevailing road condition. A fuzzy logic approach is applied to maintain the optimal target slip ratio so that the best compromise between braking deceleration, stopping distance and direction stability performances can be obtained for the vehicle. The scheme is implemented using an 8-DOF nonlinear vehicle model and simulation tests were carried out in different conditions. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme is robust and effective. Compared with a fixed-slip ratio scheme, the stopping distance can be decreased with satisfactory directional control performance meanwhile.