We examined the roles of metacognitive awareness of reading strategies, syntactic awareness in English, and English vocabulary knowledge in the English reading comprehension of Chinese-speaking university students (n = 278). Results suggested a two-factor model of a General Reading Knowledge factor (metacognitive awareness employed during the English reading process) and a Second Language (L2) Specific Knowledge factor (comprising vocabulary knowledge and syntactic awareness) offered the best fit to the data; 87% of the variance in reading comprehension was explained by the two factors together. L2 Specific Knowledge was a stronger predictor of reading comprehension than metacognitive awareness. A multigroup analysis was conducted using structural equation modeling to compare poor-reader and good-reader groups. The correlation between the L2 Specific Knowledge and metacognitive awareness and their relations to reading comprehension was the same across groups. (Contains 2 figures and 4 tables.)