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A phase-field model is developed for simulating quantitatively microstructural pattern formation in solidification of dilute binary alloys with coupled heat and solute diffusion. The model reduces to the sharp-interface equations in a computationally tractable thin-interface limit where (i) the width of the diffuse interface is about one order of magnitude smaller than the radius of curvature of the interface but much larger than the real microscopic width of a solid-liquid interface, and (ii) kinetic effects are negligible. A recently derived antitrapping current [A. Karma, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 115701 (2001)] is used in the solute conservation equation to recover precisely local equilibrium at the interface and to eliminate interface stretching and surface diffusion effects that arise when the solutal diffusivities are unequal in the solid and liquid. Model results are first compared to analytical solutions for one-dimensional steady-state …