A hybrid scatter search algorithm(HSSA) for solving the capacitated vehicle routing problem is proposed. Based on the basic scatter search, the reference set update method(RSUM) and the solution combination method(SCM) are applied to search the global-space. In order to expand the search space and prevent the local minimum, a random insertion method is used as the diversification generation method(DGM). A simplified variable neighborhood search(VNS), as the solution improvement method(SIM), is developed to search the local-space. To improve the efficiency of the SIM, a neighborhood size reduction scheme(NERS) is applied. The Elitism strategy to ensure convergence is introduced. The computational results show that the HSSA can find the global optimal solution with high performance, better than comparison algorithms.