A st rain of Chlorella ellipsoidea with high tolerance to heavy metals was isolated. Grow th and heavy metals removal were studied on this alg a exposed to different heavy metal concent rations.The ef fect of heavy metal on grow th indicated that cells can live in higher Zn²⁺ and Cd²⁺ concent rations.The tolerant sequence to 4 kinds of metals for C.ell ipsoidea was Zn²⁺ > Cd²⁺ > Ni²⁺ > Cu²⁺.The content of chlo rophyll a decreased with the increase of heavy metal concent rations. In this ex periment, C.ellipsoidea also show ed its rather st rong ability to remove heavy metals from the medium.After 72-hour treatment, the removal rates of metals were 40.93%, 98.33%, 97.62%and 86.88% respectively, for 15 μmol/L Cu²⁺, 300μmol/L Zn²⁺, 100μmol/L Ni²⁺ and 30μmol/L Cd²⁺.These results suggested that the C.ellipsoidea strain could be applied to the treatment of heavy metal wastewater.