Although the immune system possesses the means to respond to cancer, it often fails to control the spread of malignancy. Nonetheless, equipping endogenous immunity to release a strong antitumor response has significant advantages over conventional therapies. This review explores some of the options available to accomplish this,focusing first on vaccinations with tumor antigens to stimulate the immune system and empower stronger antitumor responses. We then compare and contrast the so-far limited clinical success of vaccination with the well-documented curative potential of adoptive therapy using T lymphocytes transfer. Finally, we highlight novel approaches using T cell receptor (TCR) gene transfer strategy to exploit allogeneic T cell repertoires in conjunction with receptors selected in vitro for defined MHC/peptide combinations, as a basis for antigen-specific gene therapy of cancers.