A one-dimensional mathematical model to predict tobacco rod ventilation and pressure drop has been developed. The model consists of non-Darcy air flow inside the tobacco rod and air flow through the cigarette paper bearing a linear or a non-linear relationship with respect to pressure difference across the paper, which were expressed in a set of simultaneous first-order ordinary differential equations. The differential equations can be solved numerically by the Runge-Kutta-Gill method under a given set of boundary conditions and physical parameters. Calculated tobacco rod ventilation and pressure drop were compared with experimental results. Two types of cigarette papers, i.e., electrostatically perforated papers and naturally porous papers of differing air permeability were prepared for these experiments. Filter cigarettes containing a commercial blend of tobacco were wrapped with these papers. The air permeability of the tipping paper was negligibly small. Tobacco rod ventilation and pressure drop were measured under a constant drawn flow rate, as well as an intermittently drawn flow with a sinusoid-shaped puff profile. Calculated results agreed very closely with experimental results regardless of drawn flow profiles and types of cigarette papers, indicating that the proposed model should be valid and applicable to the quantitative evaluation of the physical parameters governing the tobacco rod ventilation. The model demonstrates that the degree of tobacco rod ventilation clearly varies with the drawn flow rate dependently on the value of exponent constant characterizing the flow-pressure relationship for a cigarette paper.