  We discuss a new mechanism of obtaining a period of cosmological inflation in
the context of string theory. This mechanism is based on embedded defects which
form dynamically on higher dimensional D-branes. Such defects generate
topological inflation, but unlike topological inflation from stable defects,
here there is a natural graceful exit from inflation: the decay of the embedded
defect. We demonstrate the idea in the context of a brane-antibrane
annihilation process. The graceful exit mechanism suggested here applies
generically to all realizations of inflation on D-branes.
