Castor bean (Ricinus communis) is cultivated for seed oil throughout tropical and subtropical regions but the understanding of its genetic variability is limited. Because applicable microsatellite markers are not sufficient, we isolated and characterized polymorphic simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci acquired from a microsatellite-enriched genomic DNA library of castor bean. Finally, 28 SSR loci revealed polymorphisms in a castor bean collection consisting of 72 accessions. A total of 73 alleles were detected, with an average of 3.18 alleles per locus, and the polymorphism information content (PIC) ranged from 0.03 to 0.47 (mean = 0.26). Values for observed ($H_o$) and expected ($H_E$) heterozygosity ranged from 0.00 to 0.19 (mean = 0.11) and from 0.04 to 0.54 (mean = 0.31), respectively. To understand genetic relationships within the castor bean collection, a dendrogram was constructed based on profiles of the 28 SSR loci. These newly developed SSRs will be useful tools for assessing genetic diversity and population structure in castor bean.