su - 
yum install gcc-c++ openssl-devel
cd /usr/local/src
wget http://nodejs.org/dist/node-latest.tar.gz
tar zxvf node-latest.tar.gz
(cd into extracted folder: ex "cd node-v0.10.3")
./configure
make
make install

To create an RPM package, you can use FPM:

# wget http://nodejs.org/dist/node-latest.tar.gz
# tar zxvf node-latest.tar.gz
(cd into extracted folder: ex "cd node-v0.10.3")
# ./configure --prefix=/usr/
# make
# mkdir /tmp/nodejs
# make install DESTDIR=/tmp/nodejs/
# tree -L 3 /tmp/nodejs/
/tmp/nodejs/
└── usr
    ├── bin
    │   ├── node
    │   ├── node-waf
    │   └── npm -> ../lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npm-cli.js
    ├── include
    │   └── node
    ├── lib
    │   ├── dtrace
    │   ├── node
    │   └── node_modules
    └── share
        └── man

Now make the nodejs package:

# fpm -s dir -t rpm -n nodejs -v 0.8.18 -C /tmp/nodejs/ usr/bin usr/lib

Then install and check the version:

# rpm -ivh nodejs-0.8.18-1.x86_64.rpm 
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:nodejs                 ########################################### [100%]

# /usr/bin/node --version
v0.8.18

If you have CentOS 6.x, and have enabled the EPEL repository, you can use yum to install node/npm:

$ sudo yum install npm

After the installation is complete, check to make sure node is setup properly:

$ node -v

(Should return something like v0.10.36).

If you want later versions of Node.js (e.g. 4.x, 5.x, etc.), you can use the Nodesource yum repositoryinstead of EPEL.