The fabrication of necklace-shaped assembly of inorganic fullerene-like molybdenum disulfide nanospheres via a micelle-assisted route is reported, in which necklace-shaped assembly of amorphous MoS3 nanospheres is driven by the aggregation transformation of surfactants at low temperatures and then is transformed to the assembly of target fullerene-like MoS2 by annealing. This nanostructure is a type of oriented assembly of inorganic fullerene-like structures, which is confirmed by the transmission electron microscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy analysis. The optical absorption property is investigated to show their inorganic fullerene-like structure and uniform shape. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.