The propagation and the principle of refraction and reflection of traveling waves after fault at overhead lines are analyzed. In respect to the lack of double-ended ranging, this paper proposes a new fault location method based on the analysis of the first three waves’ head of the single-ended traveling wave. First, the real-time communication device is installed at both ends of the line, according to the arrival time of the first wave’s head to determine which end of the bus the fault point approaches to. Then the absolute time of the first three waves’ head arrival received by M-end bus is recorded by using single-ended traveling wave ranging method and the types of fault point are determined. Mathematical deformation is used to eliminate wave velocity which will produce errors to fault location results and fault point location is obtained. The method proposed avoids the problem of distinguishing the nature of the second wave head in single-ended traveling wave ranging, eliminates the influence of accurate time synchronization at both sides of line on ranging accuracy of double-ended ranging principle, and eliminates the wave velocity v, thus improving the accuracy of fault location. ATP-EMTP simulation results show that the proposed method is feasible, and its fault location accuracy is higher.