Traditional research in automated negotiation is focused on negotiation protocol and strategy. This paper studies automated negotiation from a new point, proposes a novel concept, namely negotiating agent, argues its significance in construction of automated negotiation system; designs its architecture, which is based on the agent’s ability of communication, and can support both goal-directed reasoning and reactive response. In order to construct an interaction mechanism among negotiating agents, a communication model is proposed, in which the negotiation language used by agents is defined. Design of the communication model and the language has been attempted in such a way so as to provide general support for a wide variety of commercial negotiation circumstances, and therefore to be particularly suitable for electronic commerce.