The present work deals with the numerical study of temperature distribution in the laminar boundary layer driven by the stretching boundary surface subjected to pressure gradient. The similarity transformation obeying the same power law based on composite reference velocity (union of velocities of the stretching boundary and free stream) has been employed that leads to a single set of equations, irrespective of the condition whether U-w > U-infinity or U-w < U-infinity, containing three parameters: beta measuring the stretch rate of the moving boundary, epsilon is the ratio of free stream velocity to composite reference velocity and Pr is the Prandtl number of the ambient fluid. The numerical solutions of the thermal boundary layer equations are obtained for three Prandtl numbers 0.7, 1.0 and 10 for 0 <= epsilon <= 1 and for 0 <= beta <= 2. The heat transfer coefficient show appreciable dependence on the ratio of free stream velocity to union of velocities of the stretching surface boundary and free stream. Crown Copyright (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.