Approximation methods such as response surface method and artificial neural network (ANN) method are widely used to alleviate the computation costs in structural reliability analysis. However most of the ANN methods proposed in the literature suffer various drawbacks such as poor choice of parameter setting, poor generalization and local minimum. In this study, a support vector machine-based radial basis function (RBF) network method is proposed, in which the improved RBF model is used to approximate the limit state function and then is connected to a reliability method to estimate failure probability. Since the learning algorithm of RBF network is replaced by the support vector algorithm, the advantage of the latter, such as good generalization ability and global optimization are propagated to the former, thus the inherent drawback of RBF network can be defeated. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the applicability of the improved RBF network method in structural reliability analysis, as well as to illustrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed method.