Abstract: Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular emergency events caused by vulnerable plaque are one of the major threats to human health, so it′s very important to detect and evaluate vulnerable property of plaque. Conventional imaging evaluates plaque by morphology. Although lots of progress has been made in technology, limitation still exists in early detection and evaluation. Molecular imaging has been applied in radionuclide imaging, MRI, ultrasound and optical imaging. Imaging targets of vulnerable plaque include plaque composition, inflammation, thrombosis, angiogenesis and apoptosis etc, which represent the morphology and functional metabolism of plaque. Multimodal molecular imaging combines advantages of each single imaging method, providing help for early detection and evaluation of vulnerable plaque. This article makes a review about current situation of detection and evaluation for atherosclerosis vulnerable plaque by conventional imaging and molecular imaging.