Fast and non-destructive measurements of tobacco leaf pigment contents by spectroscopy in situ in the field has great significance in production guidance for nutrient diagnosis and growth monitoring of tobacco in vegetative growth stage, and it is also very important for the quality evaluation of tobacco leaves in mature stage. The purpose of this study is to estimate the chlorophyll and carotenoid contents of tobacco leaves using tobacco leaf spectrum collected in the field. Reflectance spectrum of tobacco leaves in vegetative growth stage and mature stage were collected in situ in the field and the pigment contents of tobacco leaf samples were measured in this study, taking the tobacco leaf samples collected in each and both stages as modeling sets respectively, and using the methods of support vector machine (SVM) and spectral indice to establish the pigment content estimation models, and then compare the prediction performance of the models built by different methods. The study results indicated that the difference of estimation performance by each stage or mixed stages is not significant. For chlorophyll content, SVM and spectral indice modeling methods can both have a well estimation performance, while for carotenoid content, SVM modeling method has a better estimation performance than spectral indice. The coefficient of determination and the root mean square error of SVM model for estimating tobacco leaf chlorophyll content by each stage were 0.867 6 and 0.014 7, while the coefficient of determination and the root mean square error of SVM model for estimating tobacco leaf chlorophyll content by mixed stages were 0.898 6 and 0.012 3; The coefficient of determination and the root mean square error for estimating tobacco leaf carotenoid content by each stage were 0.861 4 and 0.002 5, while the coefficient of determination and the root mean square error of SVM model for estimating tobacco leaf carotenoid content by mixed stages were 0.839 9 and 0.002 5. The innovation point of this study is that on the basis of support vector machine and spectral indice, models established by each stage and mixed stages for estimating the pigment contents of tobacco leaf samples can provide scientific basis and technical support for quality control of tobacco leaf production in field and the ensurance of tobacco leaf recovery quality.