In this paper, new explicit and exact travelling wave solutions for a compound KdV-Burgers equation are obtained by using the hyperbola function method and the Wu elimination method, which include new solitary wave solutions and periodic solutions. Particularly important cases of the equation, such as the compound KdV, mKdV-Burgers and mKdV equations can be solved by this method. The method can also solve other nonlinear partial differential equations.