Synthetic cubic boron nitride (CBN) compacts are an important tool material used extensively for the machining of hardened steels. The paper describes work on the synthesis and characterization of CBN compacts. A 200 tonne cubic press has been used for the generation of high pressures. Solid solutions of TiN and TiC have been used as the binder material. The CBN powder and the binder are homogenously mixed and the mixed powder is pressed in a steel die under a pressure of about 3 kbars (300 M Pa). The pellets so formed are the starting material for synthesizing the compacts. Compacts both with and without a tungsten carbide substrate have been synthesized. The best compacts are formed at 58kbar (5.8 G Pa) and 1450° C. The sintered compacts after grinding and polishing are characterized by using powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray analysis. Knoop hardness measurements made on the best CBN compacts give a hardness of 3400HK0.5.