Ubuntu Wiki

Checkinstall - This handy program acts as a kind of wrapper around the source codes build system and creates a simple package that the packaging system can use to install and uninstall compiled source

For example, a typical gnu-type compilation process might look something like this

-configure build for this system
$./configure

- compile the program
$make

- install the program
$make install

Checkinstall replaces the last step, it pretends to run 'make install' inside of a fake installation environment, sees what files go where, and then creates a package that does the same thing. Essentially this means that the package management system can handle installing and removing your compiled program instead of 'make install' / 'make uninstall'