Abstract We propose a high-performance visual target tracking (VTT) algorithm based on classified-patch kernel particle filter (CKPF). Novel features of this VTT algorithm include sparse representations of the target template using the label-consistent K-singular value decomposition (LC-KSVD) algorithm; Gaussian kernel density particle filter to facilitate candidate template generation and likelihood matching score evaluation; and an occlusion detection method using sparse coefficient histogram (ASCH). Experimental results validate superior performance of the proposed tracking algorithm over state-of-the-art visual target tracking algorithms in scenarios that include occlusion, background clutter, illumination change, target rotation, and scale changes.