In circular accelerators, transverse beam emittances can be exchanged by means of a coupling resonance crossing. It was first demonstrated experimentally at CERN accelerators, before a theoretical study revealed its mechanism. The existing theory of emittance exchange seems, however, to be deficient. In this study, we establish a theory of emittance exchange using the matrix formalism. Furthermore, we have found that the mechanism of emittance exchange is analogous to the transition dynamics of two-state quantum systems, thereby allowing the Landau-Zener formula to be applied for the prediction of transverse emittance values after nonadiabatic crossing.