Carter Revard was born March 25, 1931 in Pawhuska, OK. He is part Osage on his father's side, and was given his Osage name in 1952 in Pawhuska by his grandmother, Mrs. Josephine Jump. He grew up in the Buck Creek Valley twenty miles east of Pawhuska, working in the hay and harvest fields, training greyhounds, and graduating as did his six brothers and sisters from Buck Creek School (one room, eight grades), where he and his twin sister did the janitoring in their eighth grade year. He graduated from Bartlesville College High, winning a radio quiz scholarship to the University of Tulsa, where he took a B.A. in 1952. He then took a B.A. from Oxford University with the help of a Rhodes Scholarship and support from Professor Franklin Eikenberry of the University of Tulsa, who also helped him go on to a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1959. Upon receiving his degree, Carter taught at Amherst College. Since 1961 he has taught at Washington University, St. Louis, and as a Visiting Professor at the University of Tulsa and University of Oklahoma. His scholarly work has been in medieval English literature [manuscripts, patrons, social contexts], linguistics, and American Indian literature. Two collections of his poems have been published by Point Riders Press in Oklahoma: Ponca War Dancers (1980) and Cowboys and Indians Christmas Shopping (1992). More recently, An Eagle Nation and Family Matters, Tribal Affairs have been published by the University of Arizona Press.

Among the organizations to which Carter belongs are the Modern Language Association, the American Indian Center of St. Louis, where he was a board member in 1980-81 and 1984, secretary, 1986-90, and president, 1990--, the Association for Studies in American Indian Literature, the River Styx Literary Organization, the Association of American Rhodes Scholars, the University of Tulsa Board of Visitors, the St. Louis Gourd Dancers and Phi Beta Kappa.

Carter is the 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award winner from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas. The Spring 2003 issue of the journal SAIL (Studies in American Indian Literatures) was devoted to Carter's work. In 2000, Carter was named Writer of the Year - Autobiography for Family Matters, Tribal Affairs by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers. In 2002, he was a Finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award in the Non-Fiction category for Winning the Dust Bowl. In 1994 Carter's book Eagle Nation was the winner of the Oklahoma Book Award in the Poetry category. Family Matters, Tribal Affairs was a finalist in the non-fiction category for the Oklahoma Book Award in 1999.

Carter received a Rhodes Scholarship in 1952. His Osage name, Nompewathe, was given to him in the same year. In 1966 he was named one of the Outstanding Young Men in America. He has received travel grants from the ACLS and the NEH, a Neil Ker Fellowship from the British Academy, a residency from the Millay Colony for the Arts in 1997, and in 1998, he had a residency at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH.