Syntheses of vanadium oxide nanotubes and vanadium dioxide nanorods were carried out successfully using hexadecylamine and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide as structure-directing template respectively in hydrothermal condition. Morphologies and structures of the samples were characterized by XRD, TEM, HRTEM, FT-IR and TG/DTA. Vanadium oxide nanotubes have outer diameters from 30similar to100 nm and inner diameters from 10similar to30 nm with length up to several micrometers. Vanadium dioxide nanorods are always 1similar to2 mum in length and have a diameter between 50similar to100 nm. The first time vanadium dioxide nanorods were obtained via an ammonium template-assisted hydrothermal method.