Abstract. Brain computer interface (BCI) is a technology recording brain signals and translate into machine language to drive device movement. To improve the convenience and practicability of BCI systems, it is necessary to reduce the number of channels of EEG without reducing classification accuracy. In this paper, a channel selection method was proposed. Combine continuous wavelet transform (CWT) with EEG source imaging (ESI), we can find out the source distribution of two kinds of motor imagery (MI) tasks on the cortex. Then the different value of source distribution on the cortex was projected to scalp. The value on the scalp was treated as a criterion for channel selection. While ESI was applied for locating the active areas, we can not only find out the prior channels clearly, but also figure out the expected areas briefly. The satisfying results show that the combination of CWT and ESI is a potential method for dealing with MI tasks.