In order to study the wear performance of new developed composite ceramic cutting tools in dry machining of high strength steels, a set of high speed dry turning experiments is conducted on 35CrMnSiA high strength steel alloy in the cutting range of vc=90～314 m/min，f=0.02～0.4 mm/r and ap=0.2～3 mm, with using of two kinds of composite ceramic cutting tools, Al2O3+TiC and Al2O3+TiC+Si3N4. Factorial statistic experimental design and single factor experimental design were applied. On the basis of analyzing notable effects of factors to tool life, the changing rules were studied between the VB value of afterwards tool wear with cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut. The experimental study shows that VB=0.2 mm is selected as a reasonable limit for the blunt tool wear evaluation when using the composite ceramic tools in high speed cutting of high strength steels of workpieces. Larger feed rate and depth of cut are preferred if edge broken failure could be avoided and on the premise of ensuring machining quality. The cutting performance of Al2O3+TiC ceramic tools is better than that of Al2O3+TiC+Si3N4 ceramic in dry turning of 35CrMnSiA alloy.