Significance Immune checkpoint therapy (ICT) has led to durable responses in a subset of cancer patients. Generally, patients who respond to ICT bear tumors with high mutational burden. Radiation is used for treatment of many types of cancers and has been shown to induce new mutations in treated tumor cells and to synergistically facilitate ICT. However, these latter actions have largely been explained by radiation-induced tumor cell death and/or effects on the host. Herein, we show that noncurative irradiation induces mutations in tumor cells lacking neoantigens and that these de novo-generated neoantigens function as targets for CD8 + T cells, resulting in increased immunogenicity of nonimmunogenic tumor cells. This study thus identifies an additional mechanism that explains synergy between immunotherapy and radiation. Immunotherapies are a promising advance in cancer treatment. However, because only a subset of cancer patients benefits from these treatments it is important to find mechanisms that will broaden the responding patient population. Generally, tumors with high mutational burdens have the potential to express greater numbers of mutant neoantigens. As neoantigens can be targets of protective adaptive immunity, highly mutated tumors are more responsive to immunotherapy. Given that external beam radiation 1) is a standard-of-care cancer therapy, 2) induces expression of mutant proteins and potentially mutant neoantigens in treated cells, and 3) has been shown to synergize clinically with immune checkpoint therapy (ICT), we hypothesized that at least one mechanism of this synergy was the generation of de novo mutant neoantigen targets in irradiated cells. Herein, we use Kras G12D x p53 −/− sarcoma cell lines (KP sarcomas) that we and others have shown to be nearly devoid of mutations, are poorly antigenic, are not controlled by ICT, and do not induce a protective antitumor memory response. However, following one in vitro dose of 4- or 9-Gy irradiation, KP sarcoma cells acquire mutational neoantigens and become sensitive to ICT in vivo in a T cell-dependent manner. We further demonstrate that some of the radiation-induced mutations generate cytotoxic CD8 + T cell responses, are protective in a vaccine model, and are sufficient to make the parental KP sarcoma line susceptible to ICT. These results provide a proof of concept that induction of new antigenic targets in irradiated tumor cells represents an additional mechanism explaining the clinical findings of the synergy between radiation and immunotherapy.