Аннотация:We compute explicitly the group of connected components of the real Lie group G(R) for an arbitrary (not necessarily linear) connected algebraic group G defined over the field R of real numbers. In particular, it turns out that the component group is always an elementary Abelian 2-group. The result looks most transparent in the cases where G is a linear algebraic group or an Abelian variety. The computation is based on structure results on algebraic groups and Galois cohomology methods.