The electrocardiogram (ECG) signal is a recording of the electrical activity on the body surface generated by the heart frequency of which is weak and low. Many researchers devote themselves to get more perfect ECG in many ways. This article introduces the characterize of an ECG signal , then discusses the requirements for the sampling circuit of an ECG. Since there are some shortcoming in common design means, the authors give an effective circuit. The system is composed of a low-cost , low-power and high-performance MCU C8051F020 , amplifier AD620 , right-leg drive circuit ,communication circuit and power management circuit. Then software design is given which is used to sampling and filtering ECG signal. Levkov filter arithmetic and smooth filter arithmetics are used in this design. In the end , the authors advance a distributing and networking ECG monitor system.