An explicit polycrystal plasticity model was proposed to investigate the deformation mechanism of cold ring rolling in view of texture evolution. The model was created by deducing a set of linear incremental controlling equations within the framework of crystal plasticity theory. It was directly solved by a linear algorithm within a two-level procedure so that its efficiency and stability were guaranteed. A subroutine VUMAT for ABAQUS/Explicit was developed to combine this model with the 3D FE model of cold ring rolling. Results indicate that the model is reliable in predictions of stress-strain response and texture evolution in the dynamic complicated forming process; the shear strain in RD of the ring is the critical deformation mode according to the sharp Goss component （{110}？100？） of deformed ring; texture and crystallographic structure of the ring blank do not affect texture type of the deformed ring;texture evolves rapidly at the later stage of rolling, which results in a dramatically increasing deformation of the ring.
