This paper proposes an efficient scheme for deterministic generation of entangled coherent states for two atomic samples. In the scheme two collections of atoms are trapped in an optical cavity and driven by a classical field. Under certain conditions the two atomic samples evolve from an coherent state to an entangled coherent state. During the interaction the cavity mode is always in the vacuum state and the atoms have no probability of being populated in the excited state. Thus, the scheme is insensitive to both the cavity decay and atomic spontaneous emission.