Purpose: The Purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between leadership styles and empowerment of nursing students. Method: The subjects were 386 nursing students who were in college and university. The data were collected from July 26 to September 18, 2004 by the structured questionnaires. For data analysis, descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficient, t-tets and ANOVA with SAS package were used. Results: Transformational leadership showed a significant difference according to school career, present grade, interpersonal relations, admission motive, satisfaction degree for nursing, satisfaction degree for practice, meaning on nursing job and transactional leadership showed a significant difference according to last session study score, satisfaction degree for nursing. Empowerment showed a significant difference according to school career, present grade, interpersonal relations, satisfaction degree for nursing, satisfaction degree for practice, meaning on nursing job. Charisma, intellectual stimulation, individual consideration and contingent reward perceived by nursing students were positively related to empowerment. Management by exception perceived by nursing students was negatively related to empowerment. Conclusion: The result of this study may be helpful in empowerment improvement of nursing students.