Fundamental to the national innovation and development strategy, cultivating innovationminded personnel is an important mission of graduate education. The quality of graduate education depends on the cultivation of graduate students’ capacity for innovation (CI). Therefore, the central task of the development and reform of graduate education is to improve the CI of graduate students. CI development is inseparable from the comprehensive effect of keen problem awareness, persistent inquiry motivation, rich imagination and strong verification and demonstration willpower. The current lack of CI in graduate students is manifested in the lack of problem awareness, inquiry motivation, imagination and the willpower to verify and demonstrate. The following factors constitute the impediments in improving CI of graduate students: misaligned curriculum system, outdated teaching methods, alienated teacherstudent relationship, utilitarian assessment methods and impetuous academic atmosphere. To overcome these impediments, we should start from the root, i.e., the utilitarian culture. Taking the cultivation of innovative personality as the goal, efforts should be made in optimizing the curriculum system, improving teacherstudent relationship through the reform of evaluation methods, so as to provide a permissive cultural environment for cultivating CI in graduate students.