It is still a challenging task to develop reliable electrodes for sodium ion batteries. Herein, a facile procedure is formulated to synthesize a 3-D composite of 1-D SnO2 nanorods anchored on 2-D graphene sheets for reversible sodium storage. The nanorods are uniformly distributed on the graphene sheets with only one end anchored on graphene, which could be attributed to the unique surface properties of graphene oxide precursor with abundant oxygenate groups. Relatively improved electrochemical performances with a specific capacity of similar to 200 mA h/g for at least 100 cycles, and good rate performance at current of five times of the original current have been achieved for the SnO2 nanorods@Graphene composite. The improved performance as compared to bare SnO2 nanorods could be attributed to the unique structures that prevent the restacking of graphene, avoid the agglomeration of SnO2 nanorods and accommodate the volume changes. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.