Effects of individual layer thickness and strain rate on the mechanical behavior of copper-gold multilayer nanowires as well as the dislocation nucleation mechanism under a uniform tensile loading are investigated using molecular dynamics method. Simulations indicate that the highest yield strength increases with the increase of the individual layer thickness. Furthermore, the result also shows that the mechanical properties in the tensile process at different strain rates are dramatically different from each other, where the dislocation motion and twinning deformation are at a lower strain rate, while the individual atoms are at a higher strain rate for leading to amorphization. The general conclusions derived from this work can provide a guideline for the design of high performance multilayer composite materials.