Background : Nosocomial Infection is an infection that acquired in a hospital or other health care facilities. The infection is transmitted by cross infection from staff to patient or from patient to other patient. One way to prevent nosocomial infection is hand hygiene. Nurses at inpatient units are the most responsible people in this case. Many factors affect the ability of hand hygiene in the nurses among the level of education and knowledge about hand hygiene. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine the correlation of education and knowledge to the ability of hand hygiene in nurses at inpatient units. Methods: This is an analytic observation study with cross sectional approach. The research was conducted in PKU Muhammadiyah Gamping hospital, with 54 respondents. The sampling technique used is a simple random sampling. Result: The result showed no significant relationship between level of education and the ability of hand hygiene (p=0,368) and there is significant relationship between knowledge with the ability of hand hygiene (p=0,000).