A method and apparatus for transmitting a Traffic Indication message from a BS to a MSS in Sleep Mode is provided in embodiments of the present invention. The method includes: transmitting, by the BS, a Traffic Indication message to the MSS, and setting a flag in the Traffic Indication message for indicating the indication mode of the traffic transmission of a sleep group; receiving, by the Mobile Subscriber Station, the Traffic Indication message, and determining whether each sleep group has a traffic transmission indication according to the flag, if so, the Mobile Subscriber Station changes the corresponding state of the sleep group to non-activated and receives the traffic; otherwise, the Mobile Subscriber Station maintains the sleep group in the activated state. According to an embodiment of the present invention, any indication mode of the traffic transmission can be carried flexibly, thus the problem that only one indication mode of the traffic transmission can be selected is avoided, hence overhead of the Traffic Indication message is reduced and air interface resource is saved.