Transition-metal compounds can be used as electrocatalysts to expedite polysulfide conversion effectively in lithiumsulfur batteries. However, insufficient conductivity and tedious preparation process still limit their practical applications. In this work, NiCo alloy nanoparticles embedded in hollow carbon spheres (NiCo@HCS) are fabricated via a facile, template-free strategy from the NiCo-metal−organic framework (MOF) precursor and used as electrocatalysts for separator modification. NiCo@HCS can not only improve the adsorption capacity of polysulfides by d-band deviation to the Fermi level but also reduce the energy barrier in the process of catalytic polysulfide conversion. Due to favorable three-dimensional (3-D) morphology, improved adsorption, and promoted kinetics of NiCo@HCS, the battery containing the NiCo@HCS-modified separator gives a starting capacity of 1377 mAh g −1 at 0.2C, which is retained by 72% over 500 charge/discharge operations at 1.0C current density. Moreover, the battery's start capacity reaches 1180 mAh g −1 (5.9 mAh cm −2 ) with a high sulfur content of 5.0 mg cm −1 at 0.2C.