Among the transition metal oxides as anode for lithium ion batteries (LIBs), MnO material should be the most promising one due to its many merits mainly relatively low voltage hysteresis. However, it still suffers from inferior rate capabilities and poor cycle life arising from kinetic limitations, drastic volume changes and severe agglomeration of active MnO particulates during cycling. In this paper, by integrating the typical strategies of improving the electrochemical properties of transition metal oxides, we had rationally designed and successfully prepared one superior MnO based nanohybrid (MnO@C/RGO), in which carbon-coated MnO nanoparticles (MnO@C NPs) were electrically connected by the three-dimensional conductive networks composed of flexible graphene nanosheets. Electrochemical tests demonstrated that, the MnO@C/RGO nanohybrid not only showed the best Li storage performance in comparison with the commercial MnO material, MnO@C NPs and carbon nanotubes enhanced MnO@C NPs, but also exhibited much improved electrochemical properties compared with most of the previously reported MnO-based materials. The superior electrochemical properties of the MnO@C/RGO nanohybrid included high specific capacity (up to 847 mAh g-1 at 80 mA g-1), excellent high-rate capabilities (for example, delivering 451 mAh g-1 at a very high current density of 7.6 A g-1) and long cycle life (800 cycles without capacity decay). More importantly, we had firstly achieved the charging/discharging of MnO-based materials without capacity increase even after 500 cycles by adjusting the voltage range, making the MnO@C/RGO nanohybrid more possible to be really practical anode material for LIBs.