The demand for more accurate and realistic 3D urban models has been increasing more and more. Many studies have been conducted to extract 3D features from remote sensing data such as satellite images, aerial photos, and airborne laser scanning data. In this paper a technique is presented to extract and reconstruct 3D buildings in urban areas using airborne laser scanning data. Firstly all points in a building were divided into some groups by height difference. From segmented laser scanning data of irregularly distributed points we generalized and regularized building boundaries which better approximate the real boundaries. Then the roof points which are subject to the same groups were classified using pre-defined models by least squares fitting. Finally all parameters of the roof surfaces were determined and 3D building models were constructed. Some buildings with complex shapes were selected to test our presented algorithms. The results showed that proposed approach has good potential for reconstructing complex buildings in detail using only airborne laser scanning data.