The first step of this work is to identify the reasonable pretreatment condition, in terms of xylose yield in the liquid hydrolysate and glucan recovery in the solid biomass. Under the optimal condition (151.9 C, 0.68% HNO3, 2.49 min), the concentrations of ethanol and lipid were 22.4 g/L and 1.04 g/L, respectively. The results demonstrated that nitric acid pretreatment of corn stover was efficient in terms of co-production of ethanol and lipid,thereby supporting that the simultaneous production of bioethanol and biodiesel can be one option of lignocellulose-based biofuel production.