Significance: In China, 66.9% male and 4.2% female adults and 14.0% male and 7.0% female youth were smokers in 2002. Thirty eight percent of male college students were smoking. Unhealthy behaviors in college students may become lifetime patterns more easily because they are in the fluctuating transition between adolescence and adulthood. The purpose of this study was to examine patterns of cigarette smoking and the possible differences between components of Health Belief Model (HBM) among current, former and non-smokers in order to explore whether HBM is appropriate to explain tobacco-cessation and nonsmoking behavior among Chinese college students. Design: Convenient sampling was used to recruit participants at a "normal" university, which mainly focuses on teacher training, in Wuhu. Self-administrated questionnaires were distributed to 550 students and 524 (326 males and 195 females) of them were returned. The instrument was based on an existing questionnaire and previous studies. Cross-tabulations, Chi Square and Phi analyses were used to display participants' characteristics. Independent t-tests were used to compare differences between measured health beliefs among smokers and nonsmokers. The alpha level was set at p=0.05. Results: 1) none of 196 females reported smoking cigarettes. Of the 326 males, 40 reported themselves to be current smokers and only 4 former smokers. The female smoking rate was consistent with previous studies, but the 12.26% male smoking rate was lower than those in previous surveys. The small sample size, convenient sampling, regional imbalance, and potential answer bias, could lead to the inconsistency. 2) Smoking was significantly related to age (c2df=3=10.46, p<0.05), college year (c2df=2=28.62, p<0.001), and having family members who smoked. Those results were consistent with previous studies. 3) Pederson et al. (1984) reported that components of HBM are independent of each other in predicting probability of smoking cessation. Our results verified their conclusion by examining the difference between those components among current smokers and nonsmokers, but we didn't have enough former smokers to examine. For nonsmokers and current smokers, the total mean scores of perceived severity, barriers and benefits are 3.77±0.97 vs. 4.05±0.83, t=-1.943, p=0.053; 2.99±0.57 vs. 2.79±0.59, t=1.962, p=0.051; and 3.05±0.86 vs. 3.51±0.90, t=-3.00, p<0.05. It was concluded that, among Chinese college students: 1) there could be differences in the prevalence of smoking between females and males, and students from different universities; 2) health beliefs could be good predictors of smoking status; 3) educational sessions based on HBM should be applied in comprehensive tobacco-use prevention programs. Keyword(s): college level issues, health promotion, international issues