A thermally compensated optical device includes in an optical path an input linear polarizer for transmitting linearly polarized light from a received light beam at a design wavelength. A composite reciprocal rotator includes a first reciprocal material and at least a second reciprocal material provides a reciprocal rotation having a temperature coefficient for reciprocal rotation (tempcorr). At least one Faraday rotator provides a non-reciprocal rotation having a temperature coefficient for non-reciprocal rotation (tempconr). An output linear polarizer transmits forward light received after transmission by the Faraday rotator. At a design temperature, the tempcorr and tempconr have opposite signs and can have magnitudes that match within 50%.