Leah Rawls Atkins is a native of Birmingham, Alabama. A competitive water skier in her early years, she won the women's world water skiing championship in 1953. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from Auburn University before earning the first history Ph.D. awarded by Auburn in 1974. She taught history at Auburn, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Samford University before becoming the first director of the Auburn University Center for the Arts and Humanities. She is also the author or co-author of numerous books on Alabama history, including Valley and the Hills: An Illustrated History of Birmingham and Jefferson County; Blossoms amid the Deep Verdure, 1892-1992: A Century of Women at Auburn; and Alabama: The History of a Deep South State