A novel LS-SVM control method is proposed for general unknown nonlinear systems. A linear kel LS-SVM model is firstly developed for input/output (I/O) approximation. The LS-SVM control law is then derived directly from this developed model without any approximation and assumption. It further proves that the control error is fully equal to the LS-SVM modeling error. This means that a desirable control performance can be achieved because the LS-SVM has been proven to have an outstanding modeling ability in the previous studies. Case studies finally demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed LS-SVM control approach.