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• Saltation bombardment is a main pattern of dust emission for compacted soils. • Wind tunnel was used to simulate the abrasion of compacted soils by blown sand. • Dust emission efficiency was positively correlated with the amount of abrader. • Clay and silt contents of soils had different influences on dust emission efficiency. • An integrated model of dust emission efficiency for compacted soils was established. Abrasion by blown sand is a main wind erosion process for compacted soils, such as dry lake basins and the undisturbed grassland that are widely distributed in arid land. Dust emission efficiency (δ) is defined as the ratio of the dust flux to the sediment transport rate from a soil surface. Previous studies mostly focused on the influence of wind velocity or soil properties on δ and rarely considered the amount of abrader in blown sand; furthermore, most of their experiments used loose soils involving three physical mechanisms of dust emission. In this study, we explored the mechanism of dust emission from compacted soils caused by saltation bombardment of the abrader making use of wind tunnel experiments and using the mass flux of the abrader (q) to represent the abrasion intensity of blown sand. The results showed that dust flux (F) generated from the compacted soil by abrasion and bombardment was linear with q , and δ was always positively correlated with q and with the silt and clay content in soils. Taking into account both the amount of abrader and the texture of the soil being abraded, we proposed and validated a model of dust emission efficiency for compacted soil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]