In this note we show that a connected, simply connected nilpotent Lie group with an integrable left-invariant complex structure on a generating and suitably complemented subbundle of the tangent bundle admits a Cauchy-Riemann (CR) embedding in complex space defined by polynomials. We also show that a similar conclusion holds on suitable quotients of nilpotent Lie groups. Our results extend the CR embeddings constructed by Naruki [Publ. Res. Inst. Math. Sci. 6 (1970), pp. 113–187] in 1970. In particular, our generalisation to quotients allows us to see a class of Levi degenerate CR manifolds as quotients of nilpotent Lie groups.