We study the pairwise entanglement and mixture of a three-qubit XXZ spin chain in the ground state in thepresence of an exteal magnetic field B. The effects of the magnetic field, the anisotropy and the temperature on the entanglement and mixture are considered, and entanglement versus the mixture of all the two-spin states is investigated. We find that the maximal entangled mixed state can be obtained in the considered system by controlling the magnetic field. Our results provide another way to generate maximally entangled mixed states.