The Mountain West Conference (MWC), the youngest of the college athletic conferences affiliated with the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association)?s Division I FBS (formerly I-A), officially began operations in July 1999 (1999 in sports). Geographically, the MWC covers a broad expanse of the western United States, with member institutions located in California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Wyoming, and has announced expansion into Idaho beginning July 2011. Craig Thompson has served as Commissioner of the MWC since its founding in 1999.

Charter members included Air Force (United States Air Force Academy), BYU (Brigham Young University), Colorado State (Colorado State University), New Mexico (University of New Mexico), San Diego State (San Diego State University), UNLV, Utah (University of Utah), and Wyoming (University of Wyoming). Before forming the Mountain West Conference, seven of the eight charter members had been longtime members of the Western Athletic Conference; half were WAC (Western Athletic Conference) charter members at its formation in 1962 (1962 in sports) - UNLV had only joined the WAC in 1996.

The WAC expanded from 10 to 16 universities in 1996 (1996 in sports), absorbing three teams from the defunct Southwest Conference (Rice (Rice University), SMU (Southern Methodist University), and TCU (Texas Christian University)), adding two from the Big West (Big West Conference) (San Jose State (San Jose State University) and UNLV (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)), and Tulsa (University of Tulsa) from the Missouri Valley (Missouri Valley Conference). After three football seasons, most of the pre-expansion members decided the that the new WAC was oversized, and departed to form the Mountain West Conference. The MWC added a ninth team in 2005 (2005 in sports): TCU (Texas Christian University), also a former WAC member, which joined after four seasons in Conference USA. Boise State University agreed to joined the conference as its tenth member on June 11th, 2010 which will become effective in the 2011 - 2012 academic year. On June 17, 2010, Utah announced it would be leaving the Mountain West to join the Pac-10 Conference.

A lesser known "Mountain West Athletic Conference" existed from 1982-88, sponsoring championships for women?s sports at Big Sky Conference institutions. The Big Sky absorbed the MWAC in 1988, forming one league for both mens and womens competition.