In this paper, the formation tracking consensus problem for nonlinear multi-agent systems is studied. The external disturbances are considered in the multi-agent systems. Moreover, a distributed adaptive control strategy is utilized to solve the formation problems, and the neural networks are employed to handle unknown functions in the systems. According to the Lyapunov theorem, it can be guaranteed that all the state signals of followers can track the state signals of the leader in a fixed distance. Finally, a numerical simulation example is proposed to authenticate the availability of the control method.