In this study, the maximum achievable information transmission rate of spectrum sharing cognitive radio with maximal ratio combining (MRC) antenna diversity technique is investigated when the channel between the secondary transmitter and the primary receiver and that between the secondary transmitter and the secondary receiver suffer Nakagami-m fading. With an assumption that both channels encounter Nakagami-m fading and the transmission of the secondary transmitter is subject to average interference power constraint, the approximated expressions for analyzing the effective capacity and the ergodic capacity of cognitive radio users with MRC are presented. The two capacity models are compared. In the case of the effective capacity, it is shown that different applications or users with different quality of service (QoS) requirements can be supported in cognitive radio, and when the delay QoS decreases, the effective capacity approaches the ergodic capacity.