A distortion compensation circuit compensates for distortion generated by one or more non-linear elements such as a laser device. The distortion compensation circuit may be used in an optical transmitter, such as a laser transmitter used for forward path CATV applications. The distortion compensation circuit may include a primary signal path and a secondary signal path that receive an input signal. The secondary signal path produces distortion of a magnitude corresponding to the magnitude of, but at an opposite phase to, the distortion generated by the non-linear amplifier. The secondary signal path includes a plurality of distortion sub-paths with each of the distortion sub-paths configured to produce intermodulation distortion products of the same distortion order but for different frequency dependent orders in a time dependent series representative of the distortion produced by the non-linear amplifier.