Building healthy soil is a prerequisite for the improvement of cultivated land productivity. It is fundamental for meeting the challenges of food security and environmental protection as well as realizing the agricultural green development and a community of shared future. The core of building healthy soil is to realize the soil ecosystem multifunctionality. In the new era of ecological civilization construction, research on the evaluation and cultivation of soil multifunctionality, and the underlying mechanisms have become hotspots and frontiers of global soil health initiatives. In this paper, we systematically review the concepts of soil functions, soil ecosystem services and soil ecological multifunctionality. The impact of soil biodiversity on soil multifunctionality and the synergies and trade-offs between soil functions are discussed as well. Also, the approaches to evaluating and quantifying soil functions are summarized. Finally, we put forward the pathways of healthy soil cultivation based on the integrated regulation of soil multifunctionality beyond the single pursuit of high grain yield. Different strategies to increase soil multifunctionality are proposed: adjusting the way of land use and agricultural structure at the national scale, coordinating resource allocations at a regional scale, constructing agricultural infrastructure and landscape pattern at the landscape scale, and optimizing the field soil management practices to improve soil health and multifunctionality at the field scale. It is necessary to explore the maintenance mechanism of soil multifunctionality at different temporal and spatial scales, and to combine modern technologies with relevant policies and implementation plans for functional soil management, emphasizing the multi-dimensional role of soil multifunctionality in sustainable environmental policy and management. It will provide important support for the coordinated development of mountain, water, forest, farmland, lake and grass life community, and the implementation of the national strategy of carbon peak and carbon neutrality.