  We review the physical processes occurring in the magnetosphere of accreting
X-ray pulsars, with emphasis on those processes that give rise to observable
effects in their high (E>10 keV) energy spectra. In the second part we compare
the empirical spectral laws used to fit the observed spectra with theoretical
models, at the light of the BeppoSAX results on the broad-band characterization
of the X-ray pulsar continuum, and the discovery of new (multiple) cyclotron
resonance features.
