The road begins at the national southern terminus of Interstate 75 at the Palmetto Expressway at the border between Miami Lakes and Hialeah.

The road heads east as an eight lane expressway through Hialeah's residential areas and through the first of two $0.47 toll gantries ($0.94 for toll-by-plate users).

When plans for the major north–south Interstate changed so it would be routed along Alligator Alley instead, the proposed Opa-locka Expressway was intended to be Miami-Dade County's second full east–west throughway.

Funding issues caused the Florida Department of Transportation to mothball its construction plans for over a decade, but when the plan was revived, the changing demographics of the neighborhoods impacted by construction (an area with a predominantly white population in the 1960s became an area with a predominantly African-American and Hispanic population in the 1980s).

In 1984, increased opposition almost derailed construction of the expressway again, but this time the resistance came from residents of Miami Lakes and Hialeah.

After a compromise that deleted one interchange with a major surface street (Ludlam Road/Northwest 67th Avenue), construction finally began in 1987.