On the basis of analyses of the typical experience of the universities all over the world, four common characteristics of president selection in the world first-class universities are summed up: the legal support of selection mechanism, the rigorous justice of selection process,the democratization to participate in the selection process, and the core quality of the selection criteria. To explore a set of selecting mechanisms which really suits the situation, China needs to draw lessons from other nations worldwide, on the basis of typical and common characteristics, to deal with the relationship between the internationalization and the localization, tool rationality and value rationality, university external influence and the internal logic,etc.