Hydrothermally stable composite materials with hierarchical macro-meso-micro-porous structure were successfully synthesized via in situ assembly of preformed zeolite Y nanoclusters on kaolin using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide as template under alkaline conditions. The characterization results show that the mesophase in the composite contains primary and secondary structural building units of zeolite Y. The building units contribute micropores in the composite with acidity similar to that of zeolite Y, whereas the macroporous kaolin substrate contributes macropores. This hierarchical macro-meso-micro-porous structure increases the accessibility of the active sites in the composite to reactants and thus confers superior catalytic performance on the resulting catalyst in cracking heavy crude oil. The present work demonstrates that the in situ assembly of zeolitic nanoclusters on substrates (e.g., kaolin) can provide a novel route for fabricating composite materials with hierarchical pore structure. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.