Almost all countries in South East Asia have their own traditional costumes but Indonesian batik has its differentiation in that it is still worn as daily clothes such as school uniform and formal attire for official meetings and has continuously adapted to rapidly changing environment. The previous researches on batik have been done in the field of each independent discipline such as traditional textile, art craft, dying method, and history. However, the studies on batik did not regard batik as a culture and did not have many interests in what factors make batik a dominant national culture in the modern society of Indonesia. This study, therefore, examines what factors make it possible for Indonesian batik culture to prevail in Indonesia without disconnection between the past and the present. This study investigates the two different factors, which are the driving force of turning batik into a national cultural identity. One is batik`s features, which are regarded as the internal factor; the definition of batik, the differences of batik patterns from region to region, batik`s commercial and cultural value. By studying the internal factor, this research gives an answer to why Indonesian nationalist leaders chose batik as Indonesia`s national identity among its enormous traditions. The other is nation-making process, which is regarded as the external factor. After the independence from Netherlands and Japan, the first president of Indonesia, Soekarno, made every effort to build up a nation-state by uniting more than 300 different ethnic groups living on the archipelago of the East India. In the course of the nation building, the president used batik, which was mainly practiced on Java, as a non-political ideology. The next president Soeharto also took advantage of batik in promoting homogeneity among his citizens. The theoretical framework for the analysis on the external factor is based on Foster`s three overlapping sets of keywords(1. imagination, invention, memory, 2. classification, knowledge, regulation, 3. commodification, diffusion, consumption), which shows the process of making national cultures. By comparing the process of batik`s becoming a national culture in Indonesia with Foster`s model, this study proves that Indonesia`s nation-making has had a great influence on batik`s turning into the spirit of Indonesia from the soul of Java, though there are some inconsiderable differences between Foster`s model and batik`s.