The invention provides a method for simply detecting whether air in an operation environment contains lead. The method comprises the following steps: absorbing micro-particles of air with a certain volume in a working site for sampling; adopting a mixed solution of sulfuric acid and sodium chloride to flush an absorption body absorbing the micro-particles in a sampling device, enabling the mixed solution with the micro-particles to flow into an accommodating bottle, and dissolving lead ions in the mixed solution; filtering impurities; dropwise adding a quantitative amount of lead ion solution into a methyl thymol blue chelate resin solid detection agent; if a color change strip appears in the methyl thymol blue chelate resin solid detection agent, judging that the air in the working site contains lead; if the color change strip does not appear in the methyl thymol blue chelate resin solid detection agent, judging that the air in the working site does not contain the lead. Therefore, the whole flow process of sampling and detection can be smoothly and quickly realized and the detection purpose of efficiently judging whether the air in the working site contains the lead is achieved. The invention further provides a detection device based on the method, and the detection device can efficiently realize the flow process of the method and is flexible and smooth to operate.