The invention relates to a method for compressively developing and utilizing nickel and cobalt in a lateritic nickel ore. The lateritic nickel ore is used as the raw material; the technical flows of mining, defibrination and ore preparation, pressurizing and wet chlorinating extraction, separating the nickel (cobalt) and iron by extraction, hydrolyzing magnesium chloride with a high temperature, magnetizing and roasting the extracted slag, magnetically separating, etc., and the like, are adopted to extract the middle product of the nickel and cobalt, recycle the light magnesium chloride and the materials used for pudding. The invention is mainly characterized in that the nickel and cobalt in the lateritic nickel ore is firstly and selectively dissolved and extracted by using the pressurized muriatic acid; a depositing method is used on the nickel and cobalt in a liquid to obtain the middle product; the mother liquid after the nickel is deposited is hydrolyzed by high temperature to obtain the light magnesium chloride and the chlorine hydride is recycled to obtain the muriatic acid; a material used for pudding is obtained after the extracted slag is reduced, magnetized, roasted and weakly separated in a magnetic way; the recycling muriatic acid enters the working period of extraction, thereby leading the muriatic acid to closely circulate. The method of the invention comprehensively recycles nickel and cobalt, magnesium and iron and has the advantages of high nickel and cobalt extraction rate, low cost, less investment and closed muriatic acid circulation. The whole technique is simple, clean, environmental friendly and is applicable for industrial production with large scale in particular.