A class of elliptic boundary value problem in an exterior domain is considered under some conditions concerning the first eigenvalue of the relevant linear operator, where the variables of nonlinear termfs,uneed not to be separated. Several new theorems on the existence and multiplicity of positive radial solutions are obtained by means of fixed point index theory. Our conclusions are essential improvements of the results in Lan and Webb (1998), Lee (1997), Mao and Xue (2002), Stańczy (2000), and Han and Wang (2006).