An improved Mellor–Yamada (MY) turbulence closure model (MYNN model: Mellor–Yamada– Nakanishi–Niino model) that we have developed is summarized and its performance is demonstrated against a large-eddy simulation (LES) of a convective boundary layer. Unlike the original MY model, the MYNN model considers effects of buoyancy on pressure covariances and effects of stability on the turbulent length scale, with model constants determined from a LES database. One-dimensional simulations of Day 33 of the Wangara field experiment, which was conducted in a flat area of southeastern Australia in 1967, are made by the MY and MYNN models and the results are compared with horizontal-average statistics obtained from a three-dimensional LES. The MYNN model improves several weak points of the MY model such as an insufficient growth of the convective boundary layer, and underestimates of the turbulent kinetic energy and the turbulent length scale; it reproduces fairly well the results of the LES including the vertical distributions of the mean and turbulent quantities. The improved performance of the MYNN model relies mainly on the new formulation of the turbulent length scale that realistically increases with decreasing stability, and partly on the parameterization of the pressure covariances and the expression for stability functions for third-order turbulent fluxes.