To improve the efficiency of digestion of the sample and explore the possibility to replace the traditional acid-driven with efficient vacuum acid-driven method for heavy metal detection.Methods 3 samples of 7 typical categories were detected by graphite furnace atomic absorption method for lead, cadmium, copper, chromium and nickel, traditional acid-driven and vacuum acid-driven method were applied. Results There was no significant difference between two acid-driven methods, and the RSD of vacuum acid-driven method was 0.04%-0.95%. Conclusion Compared with traditional method, the vacuum acid-driven method could effectively reduce the digestion time as well as achieve better precision and accuracy, and it could be used for heavy metals detection.