Herein, we report a moderate and simple approach to synthesize nickel phosphide nanorods on nickel foam (Ni2P/NF), which was employed as anode material for lithium ion batteries (LIBs). In this paper, interconnected Ni2P nanorods were fabricated through hydrothermal treatment of NF and subsequently by high temperature phosphating. NF is not only regarded as nickel source and metal current collector, but also as a support to grow electro-active material (Ni2P). Therefore, Ni2P/NF could act as a self-supported working electrode for LIBs without any extra addition of cohesive binders. Moreover, benefiting from the conductive capacity of Ni2P/NF, the active compound behaved superior lithium storage performance and cycling reversibility during electrochemical cycling process. The Ni2P/NF delivered excellent reversibility of 507mAhg−1 at the current density of 50mAg−1 after 100 cycles. This work may provide a potential method for preparation of metal phosphides as promising materials for LIBs, hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) or other fields.