diff --git a/.changes/next-release/bugfix-DynamoDBEnhancedClient-2a54d62.json b/.changes/next-release/bugfix-DynamoDBEnhancedClient-2a54d62.json
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..681a7407f5c8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changes/next-release/bugfix-DynamoDBEnhancedClient-2a54d62.json
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+{
+    "type": "bugfix",
+    "category": "DynamoDB Enhanced Client",
+    "contributor": "",
+    "description": "The DynamoDB Enhanced Client now properly sanitizes version attribute names when building conditional expressions for optimistic locking. Version attributes with special characters in their names will now work correctly. See [#3279](https://github.com/aws/aws-sdk-java-v2/issues/3279)"
+}
diff --git a/services-custom/dynamodb-enhanced/src/main/java/software/amazon/awssdk/enhanced/dynamodb/extensions/VersionedRecordExtension.java b/services-custom/dynamodb-enhanced/src/main/java/software/amazon/awssdk/enhanced/dynamodb/extensions/VersionedRecordExtension.java
index b603fe03faa7..5f5cdb02c354 100644
--- a/services-custom/dynamodb-enhanced/src/main/java/software/amazon/awssdk/enhanced/dynamodb/extensions/VersionedRecordExtension.java
+++ b/services-custom/dynamodb-enhanced/src/main/java/software/amazon/awssdk/enhanced/dynamodb/extensions/VersionedRecordExtension.java
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@
 
 package software.amazon.awssdk.enhanced.dynamodb.extensions;
 
+import static software.amazon.awssdk.enhanced.dynamodb.internal.EnhancedClientUtils.cleanAttributeName;
 import static software.amazon.awssdk.enhanced.dynamodb.internal.EnhancedClientUtils.isNullAttributeValue;
 import static software.amazon.awssdk.enhanced.dynamodb.internal.EnhancedClientUtils.keyRef;
 
@@ -58,7 +59,8 @@
 @SdkPublicApi
 @ThreadSafe
 public final class VersionedRecordExtension implements DynamoDbEnhancedClientExtension {
-    private static final Function<String, String> VERSIONED_RECORD_EXPRESSION_VALUE_KEY_MAPPER = key -> ":old_" + key + "_value";
+    private static final Function<String, String> VERSIONED_RECORD_EXPRESSION_VALUE_KEY_MAPPER =
+        key -> ":old_" + cleanAttributeName(key) + "_value";
     private static final String CUSTOM_METADATA_KEY = "VersionedRecordExtension:VersionAttribute";
     private static final VersionAttribute VERSION_ATTRIBUTE = new VersionAttribute();
 
diff --git a/services-custom/dynamodb-enhanced/src/test/java/software/amazon/awssdk/enhanced/dynamodb/functionaltests/VersionedRecordWithSpecialCharactersTest.java b/services-custom/dynamodb-enhanced/src/test/java/software/amazon/awssdk/enhanced/dynamodb/functionaltests/VersionedRecordWithSpecialCharactersTest.java
index 39d377007197..83f4cec02e62 100644
--- a/services-custom/dynamodb-enhanced/src/test/java/software/amazon/awssdk/enhanced/dynamodb/functionaltests/VersionedRecordWithSpecialCharactersTest.java
+++ b/services-custom/dynamodb-enhanced/src/test/java/software/amazon/awssdk/enhanced/dynamodb/functionaltests/VersionedRecordWithSpecialCharactersTest.java
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ public int hashCode() {
                          .addAttribute(String.class, a -> a.name("_attribute")
                                                            .getter(Record::get_attribute)
                                                            .setter(Record::set_attribute))
-                         .addAttribute(Integer.class, a -> a.name("_version")
+                         .addAttribute(Integer.class, a -> a.name("_my-:.version")
                                                             .getter(Record::get_version)
                                                             .setter(Record::set_version)
                                                             .tags(versionAttribute()))