A finite element model is proposed for the Benjamin-Bona-Mahony-Burgers (BBM-Burgers) equation with a high-order dissipative term; the scheme is based on adaptive moving meshes. The model can be applied to the equations with spatial-time mixed derivatives and high-order derivative terms. In this scheme, new variables are needed to make the equation become a coupled system, and then the linear finite element method is used to discretize the spatial derivative and the fifth-order Radau IIA method is used to discretize the time derivative. The simulations of 1D and 2D BBM-Burgers equations with high-order dissipative terms are presented in numerical examples. The numerical results show that the method keeps a second-order convergence in space and provides a smaller error than that based on the fixed mesh, which demonstrates the effectiveness and feasibility of the finite element method based on the moving mesh. We also study the effect of the dissipative terms with different coefficients in the equation; by numerical simulations, we find that the dissipative term plays a more important role than in dissipation.