In this work, colloidal CdSe QDs capped with a short chain thiol ligand thioglycolic acid (TGA) were prepared using a one-pot synthesis route in aqueous medium. This method integrates colloidal QDs synthesis and assembly of QDs in a single step due to the use of TGA, which serves as a stabilizer to control the formation of QDs and a linker to tether CdSe QDs to TiO2 during the synthesis of QDs, and it could achieve high surface coverage of high quality QDs on TiO2 electrodes. The hydrothermal temperature is found to play an important role in determining the size of CdSe QDs and photovoltaic properties of the resulting TiO2/CdSe photoanodes. To further improve the fill factor and efficiency of solar cells, PbS/CuS films were prepared with chemical bath deposition method and used instead of the usual Pt as counter electrodes (CEs). PbS/CuS CEs show superior electrocatalytic activity for the reduction of polysulfide than Pt. An optimized TiO2/CdSe based QDSSC in combination with the PbS/CuS CEs achieved a champion PCE of 4.18% under one sun illumination (100 mW cm(-2)).