Objective To identify the core capacity which is necessary for sustainable development of elite medical students aiming for creating an index system for the evaluation of life-long learning capability. Methods Literature review and expert consultation are employed to outline the essential indicators. Thirty two medical experts were consulted by two rounds of questionnaire investigation. Then descriptive analysis, analytic hierarchy process and nonparametric test were used for data analysis to develop an index system for the evaluation of life-long learning capability of medical students. Results After two rounds of expert consultation, the statistics shows the following points. The recovery of the questionnaire is higher than 90%, which means that the experts have high enthusiasm.The authority coefficient of experts is 0.9, means good reliability; The coefficient of variation is less than 0.25, indicating that the concentration of expert opinions; The Kendall's coefficient of concordance (w) is 0.27, (P<0.01) showing statistical significance, shows the good coordination degree of expert opinions. The index system presented in this paper includes six primary level indicators and nineteen secondary level indicators. Conclusions The index system for evaluation of life-long learning capacity of medical students contains six dimensionalities as awareness, self-management, thinking pathway, adaptability, information literacy and communication skills. The index system is scientific and reasonable, which may support the training of professionals of clinical medicine.