Deadbeat control scheme is widely implemented in the control of power electronics and electrical drives, which is of simplification, rapidity and flexibility. However, owing to its sensitivity to model uncertainties and unmodeled dynamics, the practical control performance is severely degraded and sometimes even unstable. Uncertain time delay is a typical case of model uncertainties, which severely deteriorates the control accuracy and dramatically reduces the system stability margin of deadbeat control. In this paper, the time delay effects on the control performance and system stability are investigated. A fractional-order Smith Predictor based solution is proposed to compensate arbitrary time delay with high accuracy, simple structure, and good robustness. The composite control scheme offers accurate time delay compensations in digital implementation and considerably enhances the robustness of the control system, which will effectively promote widespread applications of the deadbeat scheme. An application example of three-phase inverter system is explored to comprehensively illustrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed scheme.