Abstract：From the viewpoint of international knowledge economy, the paper discusses the functions of intellectuals in our social modernization construction, reveals the inner relationship among knowledge economy, social modernization and intellectuals, and expounds that science and technology are the first productivity, which is the theoretical basis for studying this problem; and that intellectuals are the pioneers of advanced productivity is the theoretical summary of intellectuals' functions. The functions are: knowledge explorer, knowledge user, and knowledge spreader.
