Low contrast and color change are caused by scattering and attenuation of the light in the underwater environment. The method integrated dark channel prior and white balance for underwater color image enhancement is presented. According to the characteristics of underwater imaging, underwater optical imaging model is established. The optimized and improved dark channel prior algorithm is used for image deblurring, and then color correction on the restored image based on the white balance theory is performed. The quality of underwater color image is improved. The experiments show that the proposed method can effectively remove the blur caused by the scattering of light, enhances the visibility of underwater images and restores color balance of the underwater image. The clarity and color fidelity of underwater color images are improved significantly.