Ce(III) oxide was synthesized under the protection of nitrogen gas, which had strong ability to reduce noble metal ions (e.g., Au, Pd ions) into metallic forms under oxygen-free conditions. On the basis of the surface redox reaction between the Ce(III) oxide support and noble metal ions, an effective and novel approach was presented to prepare noble metal/CeO2 nanocatalysts, and a series of AuPd/CeO2 nanocomposites with different Au:Pd molar ratios and metal loadings were obtained in the absence of any extra reducing and protective agents. The resultant composites were characterized by different techniques including X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microspectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron microspectroscopy, and ICP-AES analysis. It was demonstrated that in the AuPd/CeO2 composites the content of Ce(III) reached about 30%, and the AuPd bimetallic particles with average size of 2.6 or 3.3 nm and narrow size distribution were uniformly distributed on the CeO2 nanorods. The AuPd/CeO2 composites were found to be excellent heterogeneous nanocatalysts for the selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol under solvent-free conditions. It was shown that all the AuPd/CeO2 catalysts exhibited good selectivity toward benzaldehyde; especially, the catalyst with Au: Pd = 1:5 and metal loading of 1.2 wt % displayed extremely high activity with a TOF = 30.1 s(-1) at 160 degrees C.