A 60-year-old man with renal cell carcinoma developed lung metastases after treatment with left radical nephrectomy (pT3bN0M0, clear cell renal carcinoma, Fuhrman G3 >2). The patient received treatment with gemcitabine and interferon-α and achieved complete response after seven cycles of therapy. However, eight months later, local recurrence was discovered in the renal fossa. We changed the therapeutic strategy to sunitinib, a multi-target tyrosine kinase inhibitor. The patient achieved a complete response after twelve cycles of therapy. This case report illustrates the effective use of gemcitabine and sunitinib sequentially for a patient with metastatic renal cell carcinoma.