Abstract: In order to provide a guideline in the selection of parents in hybrid barley breeding, twelve representative cultivars (lines) from different barley production areas in China were hybridized according to NCⅡ design to form 35 crosses to analyze the heterosis and combining ability of 7 agronomic traits including plant height (PH), internode length below spike (IL), spike length (SL), spikes per plant (SP), kernels per plant (KP), kernel weight per plant (KWP) and thousand kernel weight (TKW). The results indicated mid-parent heterosis (MPH) of F₁ presented to be diverse in different traits. Positive heterotic crosses were obtained in the traits of PH, IL, SL and TKW, the proportion of which were 90%, 73.3%, 73.3% and 73.3%, respectively. More negative heterotic crosses appeared in the traits of SP, KP and KWP, and the highest proportion of 76.7% existed in the trait of KP. Different parents had different general combining ability (GCA) in the same trait and the GCA of one parent varied in different traits. The special combining ability (SCA) among crosses has the same result as to the variation of GCA. The SCA of a cross derived from two parents both with high GCA may not be high, and is the consequence of the interaction of genes. Therefore, primary consideration should be placed on parents with high GCA and cross with high SCA can be then screened.