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Cancers develop as a result of driver mutations^, that lead to clonal outgrowth and the evolution of disease^,. The discovery and functional characterization of individual driver mutations are central aims of cancer research, and have elucidated myriad phenotypes and therapeutic vulnerabilities. However, the serial genetic evolution of mutant cancer genes^, and the allelic context in which they arise is poorly understood in both common and rare cancer genes and tumour types. Here we find that nearly one in four human tumours contains a composite mutation of a cancer-associated gene, defined as two or more nonsynonymous somatic mutations in the same gene and tumour. Composite mutations are enriched in specific genes, have an elevated rate of use of less-common hotspot mutations acquired in a chronology driven in part by oncogenic fitness, and arise in an allelic configuration that reflects context-specific …