PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship among the factors of nursing professionalism, critical thinking disposition and self-leadership in nursing students. METHODS: The participants were 715 nursing students in tertiary education. Data was collected from March 10 to 14, 2014 using self-report questionnaires and analyzed through descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA and Pearson correlation coefficient with SPSS/win 17.0. RESULTS: The mean scores for nursing professionalism (3.48+/-.50), critical thinking disposition (3.14+/-.27), self-leadership (3.44+/-.40) were above average. There was a positive correlation between nursing professionalism and self-leadership (r=.452, p<.01) and between critical thinking disposition and self-leadership (r=.405, p<.001). CONCLUSION: The result of this study indicates that developing nursing professionalism and critical thinking disposition in nursing students is significant for improving their self-leadership. Therefore the findings suggest meaningful basic data for nursing education.