Cognitive control is the top-down process by which individuals store, plan, and manipulate relevant information through the deployment of resources during information processing. Cognitive control encompasses different research perspectives such as selective attention, conflict resolution, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control, each of which has its own unique lifelong developmental characteristics. It is of great significance to combine the psychophysical and neuroimaging techniques, in order to elucidate the developmental mechanism of cognitive control, investigate the delicate balance and interaction between cognitive control and other psychological functions, and explore the plasticity and training of cognitive control. This may contribute to solving the problems such as addictive behavioral disorders caused by the imbalance of cognitive control development as well as decline of cognitive control in cognitive aging. At present, large-scale standardized testing of cognitive control is still lacking. Considering that cognitive control consists of several sub-dimensions, future research should focus on the development of standardized test battery, the construction of normative databases, and the combination of existing big data analysis techniques to examine the developmental and regulatory factors of cognitive control at different levels. This review article analyzed the opportunities and challenges faced by the current research in China, and also proposed the future development plan and roadmap based on previous research on the lifelong development of cognitive control.