The motto for LAC House is "Kia Puāwai Tātou | The Lord's Plans" based on Jeremiah 29:11[8] The college was founded by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1908 and was originally sited at Pukekura, near Cambridge.

In the early days of the college, the focus was on training young people for missionary service and most students worked, as well as studied, to pay their fees.

[9] The college ran a dairy farm, commercial vegetable garden, glasshouses, a basket factory and a lampshade business and it was from these enterprises that students earned their fees.

[9] In 1993 Longburn became a fully state-integrated school operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church and student numbers have increased to around the 280–300 mark each year.

During Term 2, 2023 Ros Burnett took up the principalship of Longburn Adventist College, leaving her previous role of Deputy Principal at the school.

Mr van Oostveen was previously Deputy Principal at LAC from 2006 and prior to that he was a teacher at Tamatea College in the Hawkes Bay.

This was met with much relief, meaning more options available for students to choose from as well as helping the school to rise up from the financial difficulties it had faced since before previous principal Brian Mercer.