The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is crucial for harnessing the clean energy stored in hydrogen and inexpensive metals, but its practicality has been severely hampered by the lack of high-performance, inexpensive electrocatalysts. Here, a new type of ORR electrocatalyst is developed that reflects the atomic dispersion of ternary Mn, Co, and Zn species in highly N-doped carbon substrate, strong synergies in ternary metallic components have been experimentally demonstrated for the exceptional ORR performance, which is most likely contributed by the densely distributed ternary metal/nitrogen moieties. As a result, the ternary MnCoZn-NC obtained an initial potential of 0.99 V and a half-wave potential of 0.88 V for promoting ORR in alkaline and an open circuit voltage of 1.49 V, a power of 120 mW cm−2 when used as a cathode for the Zn-air battery assembly. Our work successfully attempts the implantation of ternary Mn, Co, and Zn species into porous carbon, which might suggest the controllable synthesis of other types of multi-metal-doped carbon electrocatalysts.