In addition to his music, Wang Leehom also acted in several films, including Ang Lee's Lust, Caution and Jackie Chan's film Little Big Soldier. He is also an environmental activist, and his album Change Me was dedicated to raising eco-awareness among Chinese youth. Wang Leehom was one of the first torchbearers for the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, and performed in the Olympics' closing ceremony in Beijing. Wang Leehom was listed among "The 100 Most Inspiring Asian Americans of All Time" by Goldsea Asian American Daily.

Wang Leehom was born in Rochester, New York. He is the second of three sons of immigrants from Taiwan. His father, a pediatrician, and his mother, a vocal teacher, moved to America to further their college studies in the early 60's. Influenced by his older brother, Leo Wang, who had been taking violin lessons since he was seven, Wang began to develop a curious interest towards the violin and its musical counterparts when he was three. Wang Leehom begged his mother to put him in violin lessons with his brother but his mother was against it, reasoning that he was too young. When Wang Leehom turned six, his mother enrolled him in violin classes, performing along with his brother. As he became a teenager, Wang Leehom began taking piano lessons, also self-teaching himself the guitar. Wang Leehom also worked several jobs to earn money to buy a second hand drum kit.

He attended Jefferson Road Elementary School, Pittsford Middle School, and Pittsford Sutherland High School in Pittsford, New York. Wang Leehom graduated from Pittsford Sutherland with a perfect 1600 SAT score. He was accepted to both Yale and Princeton. Passionate for a career in music, he chose to attend Williams College double majoring in music and Asian studies. He joined an all-male a cappella group, Springstreeters, and the group recorded several demo tracks.

In the summer of 1995, while Wang Leehom was visiting his grandparents in Taiwan, he was offered a professional recording contract by Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) after he participated in a talent competition hosted by the label. Not wanting to lose the opportunity, Wang Leehom immediately began preparing for his debut, and released his debut album Love Rival, Beethoven that December. The record received little limelight, forcing him to leave the label. He signed with Decca Records the following year, a label then famous for producing "powerful singers" (實力派歌手) in Taiwan. Wanting to also have control in the idol market, the label initially planned to market Wang Leehom as the mainstream "romantic idol", like with their previous artist Mavis Fan. However, after discovering Wang Leehom's talent in music-making, Decca began promoting Wang as Taiwan's "quality idol" (優質偶像) instead. Wang Leehom released his second album If You Heard My Song in 1996, which included some of his own compositions. Wang Lee Hom co-wrote the album's eponymous title song, which earned positive responses from the audience. The album drew moderately successful sales, and Wang Leehom became a rising star in the idol market, also finding similar successes with his third and fourth albums. During this time, Wang Leehom was asked to leave his college studies to pursue a full time singing career, but he insisted on finishing school first.

Wang Leehom's contract with Decca records was terminated after the release of his fourth album White Paper in the summer of 1997. After graduating with honors at Williams College, Wang Leehom released his first award-winning album Revolution under Sony Music Entertainment in August 1998. The album became Wang Leehom's breakthrough album, immediately selling over 10,000 domestic units in the first week of release. Critics rated the album highly, and it won Wang Leehom two Golden Melody Awards—Best Producer and Best Mandarin Male Singer. Wang was the youngest artist to win in either of the two categories. Wang Leehom has been nominated the Best Mandarin Male Singer at the awards every year since the success of Revolution. The singles of Revolution also achieved similar success–"Revolution" became Wang Leehom's first #1 single, becoming one of the top 20 songs of the year on Channel V Taiwan.

Wang Leehom continued his studies by attending Berklee College of Music's Professional Music program, with voice as his principal instrument. In 1999, Wang Leehom released his sixth album Impossible to Miss You, which combined the catchy pop melodies of Revolution with a quirky style of new-found dance pop. It became Wang Leehom's then best-selling album, selling over 1 million copies. All of the album's promotional singles topped KTV charts and yearly music charts, notably the upbeat "Julia" and the ballad "Crying Palm". Wang Leehom's album also attracted international attention–Wang won three Best Male Vocalist awards at three different award ceremonies and was also awarded for his musical merit in the album at the 1st annual Asia Chinese Music Awards.

At the beginning of the millennium, Wang Leehom began filming for several Cantonese-language Hong Kong blockbusters, which inspired him to study the Cantonese language. He included a Cantonese track, "Love My Song," in the Hong Kong release of Forever's First Day (2000), his seventh album. Unlike his previous two albums, Forever's First Day consisted mainly of melodic R&B tunes. The album's eponymous single is a tragic romantic ballad, speaking of a separation of two individuals. Although raised in New York for most of his life, living in Taiwan made Wang Leehom realize the deep roots of his Chinese heritage. Forever's First Day yielded a cover of his uncle's signature song "Descendants of the Dragon"; Wang Leehom re-arranged the song with heavier rock and dance elements. The song also included a rap bridge that summarized experiences of Wang Leehom's parents living as a Chinese American in New York.

Wang Leehom's next album, The One and Only (2001) received phenomenal international success. Selling over 1 million units in Asia, the rock-inspired album won him over seven different prestigious awards throughout 2001 and 2002. The album's title single "The One and Only" peaked #1 in almost all available music charts of Taiwan and was on the Ringback Tone #1 Download Charts for over a year, becoming Wang Leehom's signature song. The One and Only also found success in Japan, opting Wang Leehom to release his first full-length Japanese album The Only One in May 9, 2003. The album only promoted one single, a Japanese version of "The One and Only", but it did not meet success on Japan's Oricon Charts. Wang Leehom also began filming several Japanese films, establishing his rising star status in Japan.

Eager to experience and perform different musical genres, Wang Leehom embarked on his first Asia-wide concert tour The Unbelievable Tour a few months before the release of his ninth album Unbelievable (2003). Wang Leehom's concert tour received great reviews from both fans and music critics; they were impressed and shocked with Wang's new-found hip hop image. His R&B/hip hop-inspired album Unbelievable involved new urban pop numbers, drawing hip hop influences from different styles of popular music, such as Indipop and urban pop. The album marked a milestone in his musical career; his new image received international critical acclaim and the album a chart-topping success, selling over 1.5 million units by 2004. A celebratory version of the album was released three months later, also becoming a chart-topping album. The album's singles, notably the ballad number "You're Not Here" also experienced international success, ranking #1 on several music charts for over 10 weeks. Unbelievable yielded Wang Leehom's second win for Best Producer of the Year at the Golden Melody Awards in 2004.

Having established himself as one of the most important, influential, and prolific artists in Chinese music, Wang Leehom continued to invent and experiment with new sounds and voices. For most of 2004, Wang Leehom traveled to remote villages in China, collecting often unheard tribal sounds of aboriginal Chinese music, Tibetan music, and Mongolian music. With his younger brother as his assistant, they carried 15 kg of music equipment as he recorded these sounds, recording and producing his album on the way. He incorporated these sounds into R&B and hip hop music, coining the style as "chinked-out." Despite the derogatory nature of the term "chink," Wang Leehom had wanted to repossess the term and "make it cool." Shangri-La was released on the last day of 2004, selling an outstanding 40,000 copies within the first ten days of release, an excellent start as the first album to be sold in Taiwan of 2005. Shangri-La became an international music sensation, especially catching the attention of many youths in Asia. Within a month, the album sold over 300,000 copies, ultimately selling over 1.5 million units.