The influence of hot pressing conditions on mechanical properties of nickel aluminide/alumina composite has been investigated in the present paper. In particular, effect of the process parameters, viz. compacting pressure, sintering temperature and sintering time on the evolution of density, elastic constants and tensile strength properties of the intermetallic-ceramic composite has been studied. Elastic constants, the Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio, have been evaluated using an ultrasonic testing method, and the tensile strength has been determined by a Brazilian-type splitting test. Microscopic observations of microstructure evolution complemented the experimental procedure. Experimental results have been confronted with theoretical models showing a good agreement between the data compared.