The nitrogen (N) absorption, N utilization and some characters relationship with N use efficiency was studied on eight maize inbreds. The results were as follows: significant difference existed among inbred lines in yield, biomass and N accumulation amount. Correlation between NUE and characters of inbred lines were analyzed. The resulted showed that in choosing inbred lines, the following traits should be included, higher chlorophyll content and big area of ear leaf at heading period, higher N content of grain and harvest index at low N, and the big biomass at heading period and maturity at high N. Path analysis showed that the direct effect of N uptake and N utilization contributed to NUE was bigger than indirect effect of that. The direct effect of N uptake efficiency was bigger than the direct effect of N utilization efficiency at three applications N and uptake was more effectively at low N. The direct of utilization to NUE was gradually strengthened along with increasing N fertilizer. Both N uptake and utilization efficiency affected the inbred variations for grain yields at N2 and N3 treatment, and N uptake was the main influencing factor. While only N uptake was the mail-influencing factor at high N (N4) treatment.