The overall buckling mode in a composite steel-concrete beam over an internal support is necessarily lateral-distortional, in which the bottom compressive range displaces laterally and twists, since the top flange is restrained by the nearly rigid concrete slab. An efficient finite element method is used to study elastic lateral-distortional buckling in composite beams whose steel portion is tapered. The simplified model for a continuous beam that is presented herein is a fixed ended cantilever whose steel portion is tapered, and is subjected to moment gradient. This is intended to give an insight into distortion in a continuous beam that occurs in the negative bending region, and the differences between the cantilever representation and the continuous beam are highlighted. An eigenproblem is established, and the buckling modes and loads are determined in the elastic range of structural response. It is found from the finite element study that the buckling moment may be enhanced significantly by using a vertical stiffener in the region where the lateral movement of the bottom range is greatest. This enhancement is quantified in the paper.