diff --git a/src/main/plugins/org.dita.base/xsl/preprocess/conrefImpl.xsl b/src/main/plugins/org.dita.base/xsl/preprocess/conrefImpl.xsl
index 7817515f44..3d7f86d9a3 100644
--- a/src/main/plugins/org.dita.base/xsl/preprocess/conrefImpl.xsl
+++ b/src/main/plugins/org.dita.base/xsl/preprocess/conrefImpl.xsl
@@ -212,6 +212,7 @@ See the accompanying LICENSE file for applicable license.
 
     <xsl:variable name="topicid" select="dita-ot:get-topic-id(@conref)" as="xs:string?"/>
     <xsl:variable name="elemid" select="dita-ot:get-element-id(@conref)" as="xs:string?"/>
+    <xsl:variable name="lastClassToken" select="concat(' ', tokenize(normalize-space(@class), ' ')[last()], ' ')" as="xs:string"/>
 
     <xsl:choose>
       <!-- exportanchors defined in topicmeta-->
@@ -293,22 +294,22 @@ See the accompanying LICENSE file for applicable license.
                   <xsl:variable name="target" as="element()*">
                     <xsl:choose>
                       <xsl:when test="exists($elemid)">
-                        <xsl:sequence select="key('id', $elemid)[local-name() = $element][ancestor::*[contains(@class, ' topic/topic ')][1][@id = $topicid]]"/>
+                        <xsl:sequence select="key('id', $elemid)[contains(@class, $lastClassToken)][ancestor::*[contains(@class, ' topic/topic ')][1][@id = $topicid]]"/>
                       </xsl:when>
                       <xsl:when test="exists($topicid) and contains($current-element/@class, ' topic/topic ')">
-                        <xsl:sequence select="key('id', $topicid)[contains(@class, ' topic/topic ')][local-name() = $element]"/>
+                        <xsl:sequence select="key('id', $topicid)[contains(@class, ' topic/topic ')][contains(@class, $lastClassToken)]"/>
                       </xsl:when>
                       <xsl:when test="exists($topicid) and contains($current-element/@class, ' map/topicref ')">
-                        <xsl:sequence select="key('id', $topicid)[contains(@class, ' map/topicref ')][local-name() = $element]"/>  
+                        <xsl:sequence select="key('id', $topicid)[contains(@class, ' map/topicref ')][contains(@class, $lastClassToken)]"/>  
                       </xsl:when>
                       <xsl:when test="exists($topicid) and contains(root($current-element)/*/@class, ' map/map ')">
-                        <xsl:sequence select="key('id', $topicid)[local-name() = $element]"/>
+                        <xsl:sequence select="key('id', $topicid)[contains(@class, $lastClassToken)]"/>
                       </xsl:when>
                       <xsl:when test="exists($topicid)">
-                        <xsl:sequence select="key('id', $topicid)[local-name() = $element]"/>
+                        <xsl:sequence select="key('id', $topicid)[contains(@class, $lastClassToken)]"/>
                       </xsl:when>
                       <xsl:otherwise>
-                        <xsl:sequence select="//*[contains(@class, ' topic/topic ')][1][local-name() = $element]"/>
+                        <xsl:sequence select="//*[contains(@class, ' topic/topic ')][1][contains(@class, $lastClassToken)]"/>
                       </xsl:otherwise>
                     </xsl:choose>
                   </xsl:variable>
diff --git a/src/test/java/org/dita/dost/IntegrationTest.java b/src/test/java/org/dita/dost/IntegrationTest.java
index 8f46212057..24889437bf 100644
--- a/src/test/java/org/dita/dost/IntegrationTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/org/dita/dost/IntegrationTest.java
@@ -346,6 +346,16 @@ public void testconref_topiconly() throws Throwable {
                 .test();
     }
 
+    @Test
+    public void testconref_to_specialization() throws Throwable {
+        builder().name("conref_to_specialization")
+                .transtype(XHTML)
+                .input(Paths.get("conref_to_specialization.dita"))
+                .put("validate", "false")
+                .warnCount(1)
+                .test();
+    }
+
     @Test
     public void testpushAfter_between_Specialization() throws Throwable {
         builder().name("pushAfter_between_Specialization")
diff --git a/src/test/resources/conref_to_specialization/exp/xhtml/conref_to_specialization.html b/src/test/resources/conref_to_specialization/exp/xhtml/conref_to_specialization.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..ffb88d7bbf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/test/resources/conref_to_specialization/exp/xhtml/conref_to_specialization.html
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<!DOCTYPE html
+  PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+<head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
+
+<meta name="copyright" content="(C) Copyright 2019" />
+<meta name="DC.rights.owner" content="(C) Copyright 2019" />
+<meta name="DC.type" content="topic" />
+<meta name="DC.title" content="Conref test for #3264" />
+<meta name="DC.format" content="XHTML" />
+<meta name="DC.identifier" content="topic" />
+<meta name="DC.language" content="en" />
+<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="commonltr.css" />
+<title>Conref test for #3264</title>
+</head>
+<body id="topic">
+
+  <h1 class="title topictitle1" id="ariaid-title1">Conref test for #3264</h1>
+
+  <div class="body">
+    <p class="p" id="topic__test">apiref element (specialization of keyword): <span class="keyword apiref" id="topic__apiref">APIREF element</span></p>
+
+    <p class="p">Conref from keyword: <span class="keyword">APIREF element</span></p>
+
+  </div>
+
+</body>
+</html>
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/test/resources/conref_to_specialization/src/conref_to_specialization.dita b/src/test/resources/conref_to_specialization/src/conref_to_specialization.dita
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..95581d2e35
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/test/resources/conref_to_specialization/src/conref_to_specialization.dita
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+<topic class="- topic/topic " domains="(topic hi-d)" id="topic" ditaarch:DITAArchVersion="1.3" xml:lang="en"
+  xmlns:ditaarch="http://dita.oasis-open.org/architecture/2005/">
+  <title class="- topic/title ">Conref test for #3264</title>
+  <body class="- topic/body ">
+    <p class="- topic/p " id="test">apiref element (specialization of keyword): <apiref class="+ topic/keyword api-d/apiref " id="apiref">APIREF element</apiref></p>
+    <p class="- topic/p ">Conref from keyword: <keyword class="- topic/keyword " conref="#./apiref"/></p>
+  </body>
+</topic>