This paper describes an experimental study of the compressive failure of T800/924C carbon-fibre/epoxy composite laminates. Unidirectional laminates loaded parallel to the fibres have compressive strengths that are 70% of the tensile strength and fail by fibre-microbuckling. During microbuckling, the fibre debonds from the matrix, and the fibres break in bending. Multidirectional [(+/- 45/0(2))3]s laminates were also tested in compression, and the critical failure mechanism observed was microbuckling of the 0-degrees piles. The failure strain was almost the same as for the undirectional laminate, which indicated that the +/- 45-degrees piles have no significant influence on the failure strength of the 0-degrees plies.