Unlike for SnO, few studies have reported on the use of SnCO as an anode material for rechargeable lithium batteries. Here, we first introduce a SnCO-reduced graphene oxide composite produced via hydrothermal reactions followed by a layer-by-layer self-assembly process. The addition of rGO increased the electric conductivity up to ∼10 S cm. As a result, the SnCO-reduced graphene oxide electrode exhibited a high charge (oxidation) capacity of ∼1166 mAh g at a current of 100 mA g (0.1 C-rate) with a good retention delivering approximately 620 mAh g at the 200th cycle. Even at a rate of 10 C (10 A g), the composite electrode was able to obtain a charge capacity of 467 mAh g. In contrast, the bare SnCO had inferior electrochemical properties relative to those of the SnCO-reduced graphene oxide composite: ∼643 mAh g at the first charge, retaining 192 mAh g at the 200th cycle and 289 mAh g at 10 C. This improvement in electrochemical properties is most likely due to the improvement in electric conductivity, which enables facile electron transfer via simultaneous conversion above 0.75 V and de/alloy reactions below 0.75 V: SnCO + 2Li + 2e → Sn + LiCO + xLi + xe → LiSn on discharge (reduction) and vice versa on charge. This was confirmed by systematic studies of ex situ X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectroscopy.