The tetraamide ligand, DOTA-tetra(glycine ethyl ester), forms complexes with the lanthanide(III) cations that exist in solution predominantly as the square antiprism structure with single, slowly exchanging inner-sphere water molecule. Variable-temperature 1H and 17O NMR studies revealed that the bound water lifetimes in these complexes were sharply dependent upon the ionic radius of Ln3+ cation. A novel lanthanide-induced shift technique was used to unmask the bound water 17O resonance of SmL3+ and YL3+ complexes from the bulk water resonance. The bound water lifetime (tauM298) was approximately 800 mus in the EuL3+ complex but became much shorter (several microseconds) for Ln3+ cations with larger and smaller ionic radii. This demonstrates that water exchange is exquisitely fine-tuned in this macrocyclic tetraamide system and that a variety of Ln3+ complexes meet with the exchange requirement, Deltaomega*tauM >/= 1, necessary for an efficient MT agent.