Background Nursing is a profession affected by conflict and stress, having essential EI skills can be helpful in handling stress and conflict Aim to investigate the influence of EI on nursing students' conflict resolution strategies Design A cross-sectional analytical study was used in this study Subjects 363 nursing students from first and fourth year Setting Faculty of Nursing at Ain-Shams University at Cairo in Egypt during the academic year 2013-2014. Tools Emotional Intelligence was measured using BarOn Emotional Quotient Inventory: Short (BarOn EQ-i: S). and the conflict-handling styles were measured using the Thomas-Kil0mann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI). Results revealed that majority of nursing students in this study in below average area about emotional intelligence, there is a statistically significant association between nursing students' emotional intelligence levels and all of the preferred conflict resolution strategies except for the collaborating strategy , and no significant difference in the relationship between nursing students' conflict resolution strategies and their socio-demographic characteristics except for the competing and collaborating strategies and frequency of net use. Conclusion there is a statistically significant association between nursing students' emotional intelligence levels and all of the preferred conflict resolution strategies except for the collaborating strategy. Recommendations there is an urgent need to improve nursing students' EI positive and conflict resolution strategies through inclusion of nursing curricula that emphasize the two concepts.