The paper presented a case history of attaining the development potential of circular economy for a large integrated lead-zinc plant in Shanxi Province,China.The existing energy and material flows were first reviewed and analyzed based on the circular economy concept;the author then proposed a closed loop industrial chain model consisting of smelting,acid production,electricity generation and precious metal recovery operations.The construction of an industrial chain of circular economy for the lead-zinc plant improved its utilization of material and water resources,reduced energy consumption and manufacturing cost,minimized pollutant discharge,increased economic efficiency,and produced many environmental benefits.