Abstract A unified theory is developed for supersonic and hypersonic flow with attached shock waves over the lower surface of a delta wing at an angle of attack. The flow field on the lower surface of a delta wing consists of uniform flow regions near the leading edges, where the cross flow is supersonic and a nonuniform flow region near the central part, where the cross flow is subsonic. In the nonuniform flow region, the theory is based on the assumption that the flow differs slightly from the corresponding two-dimensional flow over a flat plate. Thus a linearized perturbation on a nonlinear flow field is first calculated and then strained and corrected so that the flow is matched continuously to the uniform flow which is obtained exactly. When compared with available exact numerical solutions the theory gives, in all cases, almost identical results, except near the crossflow sonic line where existing numerical methods fail to produce a discontinuous slope in the pressure curve, whereas the present theory predicts such a discontinuity and shows that the slope has a square root singularity at the crossflow sonic line similar to that in the supersonic linear theory.