This study is to investigate the effect of the cetane number in ultra low sulfur diesel fuel on combustion characteristics and exhaust emissions at 1500 rpm and 2.6bar BMEP in low-temperature diesel combustion with 1.9L common rail direct injection diesel engine. Low-temperature diesel combustion was achieved by adopting external high EGR rate with the strategic injection control without modification of engine components. Test fuels are ultra low sulfur diesel fuel (sulfur less than 12 ppm) with two cetane numbers (CN), i.e., CN30 and CN55. For the CN30 fuel, as a start of injection (SOI) timing is retarded, the duration of an ignition delay was decreased while still longer than $20^{circ}CA$ for all the SOI timings. In the meanwhile, the CN55 fuel showed that an ignition delay was monotonically extended as an SOI timing is retarded but much shorter than that of the CN30 fuel. The duration of combustion for both fuels was increased as an SOI timing is retarded. For the SOI timing for the minimum BSFC, the CN30 produced nearly zero PM much less than the CN55, while keeping the level of NOx and the fuel consumption similar to the CN55 fuel. However, the CN30 produced more THC and CO than the CN55 fuel, which may come from the longer ignition delay of CN30 to make fuel and air over-mixed.