Quartz crystal has a biggish temperature expansion coefficient, therefore temperature variation will cause use errors for quartz crystal devices. In order to reduce this error, we study the relation between composite compensator’s phase retardation and temperature variation. The results show that the bigger the temperature change is and the order of wave plate, the bigger the influence on the phase retardation is. The phase retardation and the rotation angle of the polarizer exhibit a linear relation in definite temperature range. The calculated result is well in agreement with experiments. Our results provide a useful referrece for the proper employment of composite compensator under different situations.