Myopia can cause severe visual impairment. Here, we report a two-stage genome-wide association study for three myopia-related traits in 9,804 Japanese individuals, which was extended with trans-ethnic replication in 2,674 Chinese and 2,690 Caucasian individuals. We identify WNT7B as a novel susceptibility gene for axial length (rs10453441, P meta=3.9 10( -13 ) and corneal curvature ( P meta=2.9 10( -40 ) and confirm the previously reported association between GJD2 and myopia. WNT7B significantly associates with extreme myopia in a case-control study with 1,478 Asian patients and 4,689 controls (odds ratio (OR)meta=1.13, P meta=0.011). We also find in a mouse model of myopia downregulation of WNT7B expression in the cornea and upregulation in the retina, suggesting its possible role in the development of myopia.