To deal with the output tracking problem of a hypersonic vehicle with parameters uncertainty, an adaptive controller which obtained H _∞ performance was proposed based on hierarchical fuzzy system. In order to solve the problem that the number of rules in a fuzzy controller increases exponentially with the number of variables involved, reduce the number of the parameters to be identified on-line and enhance the real-time performance of the control system, an adaptive controller was designed based on hierarchical fuzzy system. To weak the impact on the stability abused by approximation error of the fuzzy logic system, parameters uncertainty and the external disturbances, the robust compensation terms were introduced to improve the H _∞ performance of the system. The Lyapunov theory was applied to analyze and prove the stability of the system. The simulation results demonstrate that the system can not only track the input exactly, but also possess strong robustness.