To develop high performance nanocomposites with potential commercialization value, general synthesis strategies that could provide nanocomposites with finely tunable nanostructures and physicochemical properties are desired. In this work, we developed a universal approach that fulfill these requirements for the sequential growth of N-doped carbon-MoS2 (denoted as NC-MoS2) nanocomposites  with versatile nanostructures, namely, dual-shell, yolk-shell, core-shell, hollow spheres and nanorods. The formation mechanism of different nanostructures is proposed to be the synergistic effect of dual surfactants, the complexing effect between amine groups and Mo species, hydrogen bonding interaction among aminophenolic resols, cysteine and Na2MoO4 2H2O, and the sequential formation of Mo-resols clusters. The NC-MoS2 hollow spheres displayed higher Li-ion storage capacity than NC-MoS2 dual shell and yolk-shell spheres, which may benefit from the strengthened charge and Li-ion transfer rate originated from the hollow structures.