Receptor models have been rapidly developed to manage the ambient air quality and to establish effective emission reduction strategies. The models are used to identify various emission sources and apportion quantitatively the ambient pollutant mass based on various measured physico-chemical properties of the air pollutants at the receptor site. Many types of receptor models have been applied to estimate source contributions since those provide fundamental information when establishing reasonable environmental policies in Korea and Foreign countries. In this paper, we will introduce the basic concept and principal of the receptor model, various types of existing models with discussing strong and weak points for each model, and performance procedure of PMF model as the most popular model in the world. Further the trends of receptor modeling studies in Korea and other countries were provided. Finally, the improvement directions of the modeling works for the national and local air quality management were suggested in this paper.