High performance polymers are major and desirable synthetic materials of the 21st century. The synthesis and development of high performance polymers has received extensive attention from many polymer chemists and physicists in the past three decades, which is attributed to the outstanding dimensional stability and chemical stability under extreme operation condition. In this article, the recent developments of high performance polymers have been summarized, with an emphasis on the synthetic approaches for preparing the polymers as well as their potential applications, such as electrochromic, electrofluorochromic, proton exchange membrane, and separator for Lithium-ion batteries.