In this paper, an effective simulation method for lightning impulse voltage tests of reactor and transformer windings is presented. The method is started from the determination of the realized equivalent circuit of the considered winding in the wide frequency range from 10 Hz to 10 MHz. From the determined equivalent circuit and with the use of the circuit simulator, the circuit parameters in the impulse generator circuit are adjusted to obtain the waveform parameters according to the standard requirement. The realized equivalent circuits of windings for impulse voltage tests have been identified. The identification approach starts from equivalent circuit determination based on a vector fitting algorithm. However, the vector fitting algorithm with the equivalent circuit extraction is not guaranteed to obtain the realized equivalent circuit. From the equivalent circuit, it is possible that there are some negative parameters of resistance, inductance, and capacitance. Using such circuit parameters from the vector fitting approach as the beginning circuit parameters, a genetic algorithm is employed for searching equivalent circuit parameters with the constraints of positive values. The realized equivalent circuits of the windings can be determined. The validity of the combined algorithm is confirmed by comparison of the simulated results by the determined circuit model and the experimental results, and good agreement is observed. The proposed approach is very useful in lightning impulse tests on the reactor and transformer windings.