Main issue: This article aims to measure intercultural teamwork competence and assess its impact on career competitive advantages for design students in order to determine how effective and competitive team members are in culturally diverse settings. Sampling: there were 51 participants (48 effective) in pretesting and 405 (338 effective) in formal testing. Participants were students from three colleges of design in Zhejiang Province of China. Statistical tool: this study used the on-line platform of wenjuanxing (wjx.cn) for data collection and SPSS software for data analysis. Methods: data were collected through on-line questionnaires, and then processed through factor analysis, t-test, and stepwise regression. Results: (1) TWC-CQ scale was formed to measure intercultural teamwork competence; (2) there were no statistically significant differences among participating design students (junior and senior) in intercultural teamwork competencies; (3) key competitive advantage = 0.347 × T-behavioral CQ + 0.232 × T-metacognitive CQ + 0.172 × T-motivational CQ + 0.124 × T-cognitive CQ. Conclusions: intercultural teamwork competence and its positive impact on design students’ competitive advantages could be measured. Implications: theoretical and practical implications were summed up for future studies.