As the base of development for college students，colleges and universities are the most significant and appropriate place of national defense education. They ought to take into account the special position of universities，follow national development strategies，integrate core socialist values，serve for national defense mobilization practices，and continuously improve the timeliness of national defense education. This paper studies the timeliness of national defense education in colleges and universities in order to promote the innovative development of national defense education in colleges and universities，and uses Beijing Normal University as an example to provide referential opinions for constructing a novel pattern of national defense education with characteristics of the times，schools，and innovations.