The effect of gas mixing ratios during gas nitrocarburizing treatment on the formation of compound layer and the mechanical properties has been studied for hot work tool steel by using a combined heat treating technique. The thickness of compound and diffusion layers has been shown to grow as a parabolic relation with increasing the amount of ammonia at a given flow quantity of CO₂gas. The compound layer consists mainly of ε-Fe₃(C, N) with small amounts of γ`-Fe₄N and α-Fe. The combined heat treated hot work tool steel has shown that the thickness of compound layer increases with increasing nitrocarburizing time, but the rate of growth slows down as gas nitrocarburizing time goes more than two hours. Tensile properties have given a remarkable improvement. In particular, the wear resistance of combined heat treated hot work tool steel has exhibited an improvement of about 165% greater than that obtained from conventional quenching and multi-tempering treatments.