The present invention discloses a channel contention method, an access point, and a station. The method includes: sending, by an AP, an RTS frame, where the RTS frame carries group response indication information, and the group response indication information is used to instruct multiple STAs to return CTS frames; receiving, by the AP, a CTS frame that is returned according to the group response indication information by a STA among the multiple STAs that receives the RTS frame; and determining, by the AP according to the received CTS frame, that a transmission opportunity is obtained. According to the channel contention method, the access point, and the station in the embodiments of the present invention, data transmission between an AP and multiple STAs can be effectively protected with a relatively small overhead, and system efficiency can be improved.