The present study explores the effects of meta-cognitive strategies, working memory capacity (WMC), and syntactic awareness on Chinese EFL learners' L2 reading comprehension. One hundred and sixty-seven Chinese college students who were enrolled in the required English class, aged from 19 to 21 years, participated in this study. A questionnaire related to meta-cognitive strategies, a reading span test, a syntactic knowledge test, and a reading comprehension test were administered to the participants to collect data. Descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, a correlation analysis, and a multiple regression were used to analyze the data. Results showed that there were significant differences in meta-cognitive strategy use, working memory capacity, and syntactic awareness among three groups of differing English reading abilities. Syntactic awareness was the most strongly correlated with reading comprehension. The result of a regression analysis indicated that meta-cogitation, WMC, and syntactic awareness all showed a statistically significant prediction for L2 reading comprehension. Accordingly, the results suggest that instruction for developing reading comprehension should prioritize syntactic awareness, and then focus on the activation of WMC together with the use of reading strategies for successful reading comprehension. From the results, some practical implications to effectively improve L2 reading comprehension are provided at the end.