One-dimensional colloidal metal oxide nanocrystals are of great importance in materials chemistry, but reports on these materials are rare due to lack of well-defined synthetic protocols. In this paper, we present a general and highly effective one-pot synthetic protocol to produce 1 -dimensional nanostructures of transition metal I oxide (e.g., W18O49, TiO2, Mn3O4, and V2O5) through thermally induced crystal growth processes from a mixture of metal chloride and surfactants.