Uninvaded lungs are highly quiescent with a low level of cell renewal. However, lung tissues show extensive regenerative capacity after damage, with resident progenitor cell populations re-entering cell cycle and differentiating to facilitate repairing. Due to a great complexity of lung tissue structures and cellular compositions, lung cells exhibit different regenerative strategies in different regions. Therefore an in-depth understanding of interactions between different cell types in injury, repair and regeneration may contribute to a comprehensive understanding of how lung regeneration occurs. This review summarized the roles and mechanisms of different types of cells involved in regeneration after lung injury to inspire clinicians to explore new lung regeneration interventions based upon the regenerative properties of different cells to provide novel treatments of various respiratory diseases.