This paper presents new methodologies for driving an active magnetic bearing (AMB) system using a two-dimensional (2D) space vector modulation of three-leg voltage source converters. Two types of driving configurations are proposed: full-performance and economy. The economy configuration is proven to be more cost-effective than the conventional driving configurations. For both driving configurations, conversion rules are developed to calculate the three-leg voltage references from two-coil voltage references of an AMB system. In addition, the potential performance limit of the proposed driving configurations is analyzed. Experimental results are presented using a single degree of freedom (DOF) AMB system to verify the analytical results.