This article investigates the tracking control problem of adaptive fault‐tolerant control (AFTC) for a class of strict‐feedback nonlinear systems with actuator/sensor faults and unmatched disturbances. The sensor/actuator faults include bias, drift, loss of accuracy, and loss of effectiveness. Our main control objective is to investigate an adaptive fault‐tolerant control algorithm with the help of tuning functions, adaptive control technology, fuzzy logic systems (FLSs) and so on. For unknown nonlinear functions and fault items, FLSs and adaptive control technology are utilized to approximate them. Furthermore, over‐parameterization problem existed in the backstepping‐based controller design is solved by introducing the tuning functions. Theoretical analysis proves that our proposed AFTC scheme can ensure that all the signals in the closed‐loop system are bounded and the tracking error remains within a small range of zero even if a series of faults mentioned above occur. In the end, the simulation results show that the presented AFTC strategy is feasible and effective.