In this paper, we introduce a new four parameter continuous model, called the beta compound Rayleigh (BCR) distribution that extends the compound Rayleigh distribution. Basic properties of the proposed distribution such as; mean, variance, coefficient of variation, raw and incomplete moments, skewness, kurtosis, moment and probability generating functions, reliability analysis, Lorenz, Bonferroni and Zenga curves, Rényi of entropy, order statistics and record statistics are investigated. We obtain the maximum likelihood estimates and the observed information matrix for the model parameters. Two real data sets are used to illustrate the usefulness of the new model.