One of the skills of social needs in the 21st century is self-directed learning. A successful e-learner must be responsible for his own learning. Only when students have strong self-directed learning, their e-learning will succeed. Nevertheless, what is the relationship between self-directed learning and e-learning readiness? This article aims to discuss the connotation of the two issues, and hopes to provide a literature review. To look forward to discuss for self-directed e-learning, and as a research for its scale development in advanced.