An approach for direct synthesis of biologically significant 2-deoxy-beta-glycosides has been developed via O-alkylation of a variety of 2-deoxy-sugar-derived anomeric alkoxides using challenging secondary triflates as electrophiles. It was found a free hydroxyl group at C3 of the 2-deoxy-sugar-derived lactols is required in order to achieve synthetically efficient yields. This method has also been applied to the convergent synthesis of a 2-deoxy-beta-tetrasaccharide.