The invention discloses a WDM network path search method, including the following steps: A, a network element linked list is searched from a source network element of service to a destination network element according to network element connection; B, port searching is carried out on the network element linked list, validity check is carried out on the searched nodes, and searching is not continued from an invalid node any longer; C, all available path linked lists are sorted out according to the searched path topology structure data. The invention also discloses a WDM network path search system. The invention firstly searches out network element linked list, the port searching is carried out on the network element linked list, validity check is carried out on the node, and searching is not continued from the invalid node any longer, thus the searching efficiency is improved while the node validity is fully judged.