Lipscombite is often formed at meteorite impact sites where its crystals are microscopically small, because crystal-forming conditions of pressure and temperature are brief.

This group is within the non-silicate, category 8, anhydrous phosphates, lazulite supergroup.

It was named after chemist William Lipscomb by the mineralogist John W. Gruner who first made it artificially.

[6] The x-ray powder diffraction pattern was similar to lazulite, but unknown.

Gruner, a mineralogist at the University of Minnesota, gave Lipscomb, a chemistry professor there, the crystals for Lewis Katz and Lipscomb to determine the atomic structure using single-crystal x-ray diffraction.