A detailed description of compensation as a translation strategy can be of considerable help to professional translators by highlighting some of the options available to them. More importantly, such a description can also facilitate the pedagogical presentation of the concept. This paper starts with an overview of the various treatments of the concept in the literature before proceeding to elaborate a new descriptive framework for compensation along three axes: typological, linguistic correspondence, and topographical. The discussion is illustrated throughout by examples taken from authentic translations, including examples from the famous cartoon series Asterix.