In China, after many years, the current status and challenges of e-learning development in higher education have been gradually understood. The educational technology centre (ECT) serves as the key unit to promote e-learning initiatives, but the performance of some centres still trails their foreign counterparts. Under such conditions, the project "Construction Model of the ETC in Chinese Universities and Colleges" was conducted. An investigation of the e-learning performance of 70 ETCs was provided and the main problems were identified through quantitative analysis. Then, with the guidance of international standards, the "functional-level" model coupled with some common strategies for its application was created as an innovative blueprint to help the ETCs towards excellence.