Abstract: Lithium and rare earths as critical metals, are important industrial raw materials and play an irreplaceable role in promoting social and national security. With the development of economy, the contradiction of demand and support on lithium and rare earths has been intensifying. Coal−based lithium and rare earths reserves are abundant, of which the extraction and recovery has attracted widespread attention from countries around the world. Through a comprehensive analysis of the current research on coal−based lithium and rare earths at home and abroad, the progress on occurrence characteristics, beneficiation enrichment and chemical leaching of lithium and rare earths are systematically summarized, concluded and prospected. The challenges of their utilization contain unsatisfactory enrichment factors, high additives consumption, and high waste production of current technology. Thus, it is recommended to developed a physical−chemical combined method to directionally improve their grade, reducing the difficulty of subsequent chemical leaching. Furthermore, the research on the collaborative, green extraction other components in coal−based resources is promoted to achieve comprehensive utilization with high added value.