To weaken the nonlinear coupling influence among the variables in the speed and tension system of reversible cold strip mill, a compound control(CC) strategy based on invariance principle was proposed. Firstly, invariance principle was used to realize static decoupling between the speed and tension of reversible cold strip mill. Then, considering the influence caused by the time variation of steel coil radius and rotational inertia of the left and right coilers, as well as the uncertainties, a CC strategy that is composed of extended state observer(ESO) and global sliding mode control(GSMC) with backstepping adaptive was proposed,which further realized dynamic decoupling and coordination control for the speed and tension system. Theoretical analysis shows that the resulting closed-loop system is global bounded stable. Finally, the simulation was carried out on the speed and tension system of a 1422 mm reversible cold strip mill by using the actual data, and through the comparison of the other control strategies, validity of the proposed CC strategy was shown by the results.