MicroRNAs (miRNAs), which play a role in tumorigenesis, may also serve as diagnostic or prognostic biomarkers. However, studies on human miRNA profiles in plasma from nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients are in their infancy. Here, we used microarrays to perform systematic profiling of human miRNAs in plasma from NPC patients. We subsequently used real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (Q-PCR) to validate miRNAs with aberrant expression that could serve as potential biomarkers. By comparing the plasma miRNA profiles of 31 NPC patients and 19 controls, 39 of 887 human miRNAs were found to be aberrantly expressed. Considering the fold change andP value,miR-548q andmiR-483-5p were validated in 132 samples from 82 NPC patients and 50 controls. Moreover, high expression of miR-548q andmiR-483-5p was further found in 3 NPC celllines and clinical biopsy tissues from 54 NPC patients and 22 controls. Our results revealed thatmiR-548q andmiR-483-5p are potential biomarkers of NPC. Combining the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses of these 2 miRNAs, an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.737 with 67.1% sensitivity and 68.0% specificity were obtained, showing the preliminary diagnostic value of plasma miRNAs. Moreover, most NPC patients with a poor outcome exhibited high expression (> median) ofmiR-548q (70.6%) andmiR-483-5p (64.7%) in tissue samples, indicating their prognostic value. The high expression levels ofmiR-548q andmiR-483-5p in plasma, celllines, and clinical tissues of NPC patients indicate that their roles in NPC should be explored in the future.