Introduction: Smoking is the single most preventable health risk and important cause of premature death worldwide. According to WHOM about one third of entire population of the world are smokers. Objective: To determine the risk factors of influencing smoking among schoolchildren in Dhaka city. Material & Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted in high schools of Dhaka city during June 2006 to December 2006. Students of class VIII, IX, X and 12 schools were selected by random table selection. A total of 2474 participants were included for the study. The collected data were analyzed by using Statistical package for Social Science (SPSS-24) programme for windows version 10.0. Results: Age of the study children was between 12 to 18 years. Male and female students were 1876 (75.8%), 598 (24.2%) respectively. Among 1950 male students 702 (36.0%) were smoker and 524 female students 90 (17.0%) were smoker. Five hundred and four (63.6%) started their smoking due to curiosity, 184 (23.2%) stared smoking because their friends also do smoke, 40 (5%) smokers smoke because their father smoke. Friends know about smoking in 545(68.2%) cases, near relatives in 33 (4.2%) cases, mothers in 47 (6.0%) cases and father in 15 (2%) case. Eighty-one (10.4%) students smoke to get friends cooperation and 183 (23%) students smoke to be more acceptable to his or her friends. 573 (72.8%) were willing to leave smoking because smoking was injurious for health. Conclusion: It has been identified that friends influence, curiosity and a belief that ‘smoking relieves anxiety’ played a major contributory role in initiation of smoking. Adolescents should be careful in selecting friends, as friends influence is the prime initiator of smoking behavior.