In the recent decade, remarkable progress has been made in the field of cardiac development through the use of molecular, biological and genetic techniques. Several genes that regulate this process have been cloned, and their functions have been analyzed in vivo and in vitro. Cardiac-specific transcription factors, including Csx/Nkx-2.5, GATA4, MEF2 and dHAND/eHAND, play central roles in cardiac development. Loss-of-function of gain-of-function studies have revealed that these factors regulate heart morphogenesis and cardiac-specific gene expressions. Cardiac-specific genes, including MLC2v, cardiac alpha-actin and ANP, have specific binding sequences for transcription factors in their promoter regions and expressions of these genes are regulated by binding of transcription factors. In addition to the transcription factors, growth factors secreted from ectoderm and endoderm play important roles in induction of cardiomyocytes. Decapentaplegic and bone morphogenetic proteins, members of the transforming growth factor-beta superfamily, induce the expression of cardiac-specific transcription factors in the precardiac mesodrem and are indispensable to cardiomyocyte differentiation. We think that understanding the genetic cascade of cardiomyocyte differentiation will open the gate for cardiomyogenesis from non-cardiac cells.