A survey on farmers and herdsmen in Xilin Gol League grassland has been done for evaluating the ecological compensation performance. The results showed that the ecological compensation performance is not optimistic. Farmers perceived that the ecological environment is only slightly improved, and showed less enthusiasm for participation if the economic incentives were eliminated. Based on the structural equation model, this paper constructed an influence mechanism of social capital on ecological compensation performance, with the self-development ability and the ecological protection ability of farmers as the mediator variables. The results showed that social capital had a significant negative impact on the economic effects and a significant positive impact on the ecological effects.The influence coefficients of social networks, universal trust, institutional trust, mutual aid and compliance with social norms on the economic effects were respectively -0.05、-0.05、-0.01、-0.06 and -0.03; the influence coefficients on the social effects were respectively 0.11、0.10、0.03、0.12 and 0.06; the influence coefficients on the ecological effects were respectively 0.36、0.33、0.09、0.38 and 0.19. Among the five variables used to reflect social capital, the tendency of mutual aid was the highest, which was 0.77, institutional trust was the lowest, which was 0.19. In addition, the ecological protection ability and self-development ability of farmers played a significant medium effect between social capital and the perception of ecological compensation performance.