The digital teaching capacity of rural teachers is the key to the digital transfer of rural education. Research has mostly focused on the influence of external environment and personal motivation on the improvement of teachers’ rural digital teaching competence, but not many studies have combined the two. Based on teachers’ professional learning, AMO and social cognitive theory, this study assesses the influencing factors of rural teachers’ digital competence from both the external environment and the internal aspects of the individual, covering school management, self-study and teaching self-efficacy, and constructs a model of the factors that enhance rural teachers’ digital teaching competence. This study analyzed the key factors affecting the improvement of rural teachers’ digital teaching competence through structural equation modeling (SEM). The results showed that school management, teaching self-efficacy and self-learning had a significant positive effect on digital teaching competence, and teaching self-efficacy and self-learning mediated the relationship between school management and digital teaching competence enhancement. Teacher’s teaching age had a moderating effect on some of the paths of the model. Finally, we propose three strategies to promote rural teachers’ digital teaching competence: strengthening school management to stimulate teachers’ self-efficacy and self-learning, data-driven digital teaching competence enhancement to meet the needs of differentiated groups of teachers, and the creation of a “lifelong learning” growth ecosystem to stimulate endogenous motivation for digital teaching competence cultivation. The findings of the study will provide ideas and inspiration for the improvement of rural teachers’ digital teaching ability and professional development.