The proton-exchange process between water and a carbamate has been studied experimentally and theoretically in a lanthanide-based paramagnetic chemical exchange saturation transfer agent endowed with potential multimodality detection capabilities (optical imaging, or T1 MRI for the Gd(III) analogue). In addition to an in-depth structural analysis by a combined approach (using X-ray crystallography, NMR, and molecular dynamics), our ab initio simulation in aqueous solution sheds light on the reaction mechanism for this proton exchange, which involves structural Grotthuss diffusion.