Sound absorption of polydisperse heterogeneous porous composites is investigated in this paper. The wave equation in polydisperse heterogeneous porous composites is upscaled by using the two-scale method of homogenization, which allows the material to be modeled as an equivalent fluid with atypical effective parameters. This upscaled model is numerically validated and demonstrates that the attenuation of sound in polydisperse heterogeneous porous composites is due to visco-thermal dissipation in the composite constituents and multiple pressure diffusion in the polydisperse heterogeneous inclusions. Analytical and semi-analytical models are developed for the acoustical effective parameters of polydisperse heterogeneous porous composites with canonical geometry (e.g. porous matrix with cylindrical or spherical inclusions) and with complex geometries. Furthermore, by comparing the sound absorption coefficient of a hard-backed composite layer with that of layers made from the composite constituents alone, it is demonstrated that embedding polydisperse heterogeneous inclusions in a porous matrix can provide a practical way for significantly increasing low-frequency sound absorption. The results of this work are expected to serve as a guide for the rational design of novel acoustic materials with enhanced sound absorption properties.