In 1958, a trust was established with Sir Winston Churchill as its chairman of trustees, to build and endow a college for 60 fellows and 540 students as a national and Commonwealth memorial to Winston Churchill; its Royal Charter and Statutes were approved by the Queen, in August 1960. It is situated on the outskirts of Cambridge, away from the traditional center of the city, but close to the University's main new development zone (which now houses the Centre for Mathematical Sciences). It has 16 hectares (40 acres) of grounds, the largest area of the Cambridge Colleges.

Churchill was the first formerly all-male college to decide to admit women and was among three men's colleges to admit its first women students in 1972. Within 15 years all others had followed suit. The college has a reputation for relative informality compared with other Cambridge colleges and traditionally admits a larger proportion of its undergraduates from state schools.

The college motto is "Forward". It was taken from the final phrase of Winston Churchill's first speech to the House of Commons as Prime Minister – his famous "blood, toil, tears and sweat" speech – in which he said, "Come, then, let us go forward together".