An efficient hybrid image vector quantization (VQ) technique based on a classification in the DCT domain is presented in this letter. This algorithm combines two kinds of VQ, predictive VQ (PVQ) and discrete cosine transform domain VQ (DCTVQ), and adopts a simple classifier which employs only three DCT coefficients in the 88 block. For each image block, the classifier switches to the PVQ coder if the block is relatively complex, and otherwise switches to the DCTVQ coder. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve higher PSNR values than ordinary VQ, PVQ, JPEG, and JPEG2000 at the same bit-rate.