The attention has been paid to high-rise environmental quality on account of human activities extension into vertical space and it was expected to identify the pollution sources first for contaminants disposal in the atmospheric environment. Eighteen urban road dust samples (RDS) and eighteen high-rise dust samples (HRD) were investigated in Zhengzhou, China. The descriptive statistical characteristics of heavy elements (HEs) concentrations in RDS and HRD were preliminarily analyzed, and combined with the features of sampling sites and functional areas, element characteristics in the two dust sample types were compared. As and Cu concentration in HRD are higher than those in RDS in most regions (>80%). According to pollution index (PI), Hg and Cd in both HRD and RDS are subject to considerable contamination and very high level of contamination, respectively. Overall, HEs in commercial area samples exceed those in other two functional areas of education area and residential area. High-rise dust samples from more than 85% of the study sites present extreme potential ecological risk; road dust samples from nearly half of the study sites present considerable risk and one-third of the study sites are at moderate risk. Based on the receptor-oriented source apportionment model of APCS-MLR, pollution sources contribution in RDS is concentrated in PC1 (construction industry and transport vehicle parts wear, 95.14% to Cu), while pollution sources contribution in HRD is concentrated in PC2 (corrosion of roof stainless steel products due to chronic air exposure, 71.20% to Cr). The significant correlation coefficient between measured and predicted concentrations of HEs (R²>0.80 for most HEs) suggests that the source contribution analytical model of APCS-MLR has a good performance for the heavy metal data in urban dust samples.