Here, a facile and low cost strategy combining co-solvent-optimized interfacial polymerization (CSO-IP) and protective coating-controlled chlorination (PCC-chlorination) for reverse osmosis membranes with high flux-rejection combinations is reported. CSO-IP, which provides a high performance membrane for the following chlorination, is the same as the conventional IP except adding a co-solvent in the organic phase. PCC-chlorination, which improves further the flux meanwhile retaining the high rejection, is the same as the conventional chlorination except adopting a protective coating. The coating preparation is fairly short and needs no complex chemistry. Due to the accelerated diffusion of aqueous phase monomer by the co-solvent, the membrane obtained by CSO-IP possessed a skin layer with thin and dense active layers. Besides, CSO-IP made membrane surface rougher. These endowed the membrane with a high performance (brackish water desalination testing conditions). Because of the heterogeneity of coating structure, some regions of membrane were attacked by chlorine and the others were protected during PCC-chlorination. Then, PCC-chlorination improved the flux further to 82.5 Lm(-2) h(-1) meanwhile maintaining the high rejection (99.02%). This exceeds the performance of many previously reported membranes.