One important characteristic of wireless sensor networks is energy stringency. Constructing a connected dominating set (CDS) has been widely used as a topology control strategy to reduce the network communication overhead. In the paper, a novel energy efficient distributed connected dominating set algorithm based on coordinated reconstruction mechanism is presented to further prolong the network lifetime and balance energy consumption. The algorithm is with O(n) time complexity and O(n) message complexity. The simulation results show that our algorithm outperforms several existing algorithms in terms of network lifetime and CDS performance. Categories and Subject Descriptors C.2.1 [Computer-Communication]: Network Architecture and Design -Wireless communication General Terms Algorithms, Performance, Design. Keywords Wireless sensor networks, connected dominating set, energy efficient, approximation algorithm