An efficient multiscale‐like multigrid (MSLMG) method combined with a high‐order compact (HOC) difference scheme on nonuniform grids is presented to solve the two‐dimensional (2D) convection‐diffusion equations. The discrete systems with given appropriate initial solutions on two finest grids are solved to obtain the MSLMG solutions with discretization‐level accuracy by performing fewer multigrid cycles; it is implemented with alternating line Gauss–Seidel smoother, interpolation, and restriction operators on the nonuniform grids. Numerical experiments of boundary layer or local singularity problems are conducted to show that the proposed algorithm with the HOC scheme on nonuniform grids is efficient and effective to decrease the computational cost and time, and the computed approximation on the nonuniform grids has fourth order accuracy.