Photocatalytic hydrogen generation is of fundamental importance for the production of clean and sustainable energy. In this work, a facile in situ microwave-assisted synthesis strategy has been developed to synthesize AuNPs/CdS composite nanorods (NRs) for enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution. At 5 wt% of AuNPs, the AuNPs/CdS composite NRs exhibit a significantly enhanced photocatalytic activity for H-2 evolution that is 26 times higher than pure CdS, and 2.1 times greater than that of 5 wt% AuNPs/CdS sample synthesized via a traditional hydrothermal method. Enhanced hydrogen evolution can be attributed to the strong synergistic interactions between the AuNPs and CdS NRs in the composite material, which provide efficient electron/hole transfer, improved photon absorption in visible region, and optimized charge carrier formation and photostability. This work can potentially pave a path toward rapid, microwave-assisted fabrication of high-performance metal/semiconductor composite photocatalysts for large-scale photocatalytic H-2 production.