Hinton received her PhD in 1977 from UC San Diego, with a dissertation entitled "Havasupai songs: a linguistic perspective," written under the supervision of Margaret Langdon.

[1] After joining the Berkeley faculty in 1978, Hinton began working with California languages.

"[4] "She first worked with Native American groups on bilingual education, orthographic design and literature development.

[5][6][7][8] In collaboration with Andrew Garrett, Hinton has also directed a project to digitize many of the SCOIL records, which are now available through the California Language Archive.

[10] In 2006, Leanne Hinton was awarded a Cultural Freedom Award, which honours individuals who support communities in upholding diversity, cultural freedom and creativity, from the Lannan Foundation.