In this experiment, navel orange (Citrus sinensis Osbeck.)fruit was used as material and three treatments of the complex coating, chitosan coating and the control (no coating) were conducted to study the preservation effects of the complex coating by measuring the fruit quality and the indexes of physiological and biochemical. Results showed that the complex coating and chitosan coating could maintain higher contents of total soluble solid (TSS), vitamin C (V–C), titratable acidity (TA) and total sugar content (TSC), decrease malondialdehyde (MDA) content and polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activity, effectively enhance the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), and phynylalanine ammonia–lyase (PAL) and very significantly (P?0.01) decrease fruit weight loss rate. At the end of storage, the decay rate of the complex coating was 4.67%, significantly (P?0.05) lower than 7.33% of the control, and TSC of the complex coating was 12.13%, very significantly (P?0.01) higher than that of the control. Thus it can be seen that the complex coating of chitosan with C. atratum extract for the cold storage of navel orange is feasible.