Nanocrystals have drawn lots of attention in many fields. The main-stream synthetic routes usually produced hydrophobic nanocrystals (NCs). Organometallic precursors and long-alkyl-chain ligands are adopted and for further use surface modification to render them water-soluble is needed. A direct protocol to synthesize water-soluble NCs in an environmental-friendly and convenient way is still quite deficient, especially for sub-10 nm NCs. We report here a formamide solvent-system to prepare high-quality metal, metal alloy, metal sulfide, metal selenide and ternary sulfide NCs in the sub-10 nm region, with simple inorganic metal salts as precursors. The as-obtained NCs exhibit monodisperse size and can be dispersed in aqueous solution for further applications.