An analytical model incorporating bending and shear behavior is presented to predict the lateral loading characteristic for rectangular hollow columns. The moment-curvature relationship for the rectangular hollow sections of a column is firstly determined. Then the nonlinear lateral load-displacement relationship for the hollow column can be obtained accordingly. In this model, thirteen constitutive laws for confined concrete and five approaches to estimate the shear capacity are used. A series of tests on 12 model hollow columns aimed at the seismic shear behavior are reported, and the test data are compared to the analytical results. It is found that the analytical model reflects the experimental results rather closely.