In this work, we report a facile approach to mass produce carbon-coated MoS2 (C-MoS2) nanorods with high uniformity. The C-MoS2 nanorods are prepared using MoO3 nanorods as the precursor via a sulfidation and subsequent chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of an amorphous carbon layer. When evaluated as an anode material for lithium-ion batteries, the C-MoS2 nanorods exhibit improved reversibility and cycling performance compared with the bare MoS2 nanorods. A high capacity of 621 mA h g− 1 can be retained after 80 cycles at a current density of 200 mA g− 1. The rate capability of the C-MoS2 nanorods is also improved. The carbon layer is believed to better retain the structure upon prolonged cycling and to improve the conductivity of the material. This simple strategy using gas-phase sulfidation and CVD carbon coating could also be applied to prepare other nanostructured carbon-coated metal sulfides.