Many serum biochemical indices have been found to be associated with coronary heart disease (CHD); however, few studies have evaluated the value on screening CHD of the integrated serum biochemical indices. In this study, 627 healthy controls and 1049 patients with CHD were recruited to develop CHD screening models for males and females using unconditional logistic regression. The performance of the screening models was evaluated by areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves (AUCs), and externally validated in another population comprised of 190 healthy controls and 246 patients with CHD. Backward stepwise variable selection showed that increasing age, total cholesterol (TC), logarithm-transformed homocysteine (lnHCY), logarithm-transformed γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (lnGGT), and decreasing uric acid, logarithm-transformed triglyceride, apolipoprotein A (apoA) and apolipoprotein B (apoB), increased the detection of CHD in males. In comparison, increasing age, TC, lnHCY, lnGGT and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol versus low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and decreasing apoA, apoB, logarithm transformed lipoprotein (A) and logarithm transformed total bilirubin, increased the detection of CHD in females. The AUCs for the screening models for males and females were 0.958 (95% CI 0.946 to 0.969) and 0.986 (95% CI 0.977 to 0.994), respectively. The performance of the screening models was further evaluated in external validation samples, the AUCs for males and females were 0.907 and 0.992, respectively. Our study suggests that integrated serum biochemical indices may be used to screen for suspected CHD in participants. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/