David Eisenhower was born on March 31, 1948 in West Point, Orange County, New York to John and Barbara Eisenhower. His father was a U.S. Army officer, and his grandfather was future President of the United States of America, and former Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe during World War II, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

His father would go on to be a brigadier general in the U.S. Army Reserve and U.S. Ambassador to Belgium (1969—1971), and is currently a military historian. His grandfather would become president of Columbia University (1948–1953), and later the 34th President of the United States (1953–1961). After assuming the presidency in 1953, President Eisenhower named the presidential mountain retreat, Camp David, after David Eisenhower.

On December 22, 1968, he married Julie Nixon, the daughter of the 37th President of the United States, Richard Nixon, who served as Dwight Eisenhower's Vice-President. The couple had known each other since meeting at the 1956 Republican National Convention. The Reverend Norman Vincent Peale officiated in the non-denominational rite at the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City. His best man was future Love Boat actor and congressman Fred Grandy.

He and Julie live in Pennsylvania. They are the parents of three children—actress Jennie Elizabeth Eisenhower (b. 1978), Alexander Richard Eisenhower (b. 1980), and Melanie Catherine Eisenhower (b. 1984).

Eisenhower graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and Amherst College. After college, he served as an officer in the United States Naval Reserve before earning his J.D. from The George Washington University Law School in 1976.

He was at least loosely identified with the Nixon Administration, when he accepted a request to attend the funeral of Dan Mitrione in 1970, the operative whose activities in training Uruguayan police in torture techniques, when later publicized, caused profound controversy , although there has been no suggestion that Eisenhower had any knowledge of Mitrione's controversial activities.

He is today a professor and public policy fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, author, and co-chair of the Foreign Policy Research Institute's History Institute for Teachers. From 2001—2003 he was editor of the journal Orbis published by FPRI.

Eisenhower was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in history in 1987 for his work Eisenhower: At War, 1943-1945—about the Allied leadership during World War II.

The Creedence Clearwater Revival song "Fortunate Son" was inspired by David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon. John Fogerty who wrote the song thought that Eisenhower received preferential treatment because he was born into a famous family and married to the daughter of the President.