A novel cross-range scaling (CRS) algorithm for inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) is addressed in this paper. If the rotational velocity (RV) is constant during the imaging interval, the received signal after translational motion compensation can be regarded as a multicomponent linear frequency modulated (LFM) signal, and the RV is embedded in the chirp rate. The time frequency analysis technique, Lv's distribution (LVD), is adopted to represent the signal and extract the RV. By using the estimated RV, the scaled ISAR image is obtained. The proposed algorithm is free of searching and has high accuracy. Finally, the simulation experiment is carried out to verify the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.