Microbes have the characteristic of high diversity in natural environment, but 99% of microorganisms remain “unculturable” by using traditional methods. Besides, the culturable fraction can’t represent the diversity of micro-ecology. Therefore, the present tasks are to identify species and functions of new microorganisms. This article reviews some success in the isolation and cultivation of unculturable bacteria from complex bacterial communities and their functions researches, including modifying medium, microbial interactions, capture, isolation and cultivation and high-throughput cultivation.