The first public museum in the U.S. Intelligence Community,[2] NCM is located in the former Colony Seven Motel, just two blocks from the NSA headquarters at Fort George G. Meade in Maryland.

A Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport, modified to look like a reconnaissance-configured C-130A, memorialized a U.S. Air Force aircraft shot down over Soviet Armenia during the Cold War.

[6] The NCM collection contains thousands of artifacts, including numerous working World War II German Enigma machines (two of them are available for visitors to try out), and a Navy Bombe used to break it.

In addition to exhibits covering equipment used to encrypt, decrypt, and secure information, the museum features exhibits on the people who contributed to cryptography in America, such as George Washington (who integrated military intelligence tactics, including coded messaging, into the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War), the Native American code talkers (who protected U.S. communications during both World Wars by using their native languages to encode message traffic), and the Navy WAVES (who, like the WRENS of the British Royal Navy, operated the Bombe to decrypt German military traffic during WWII).

Collections are divided into four major groupings: In addition, there are galleries throughout NCM focusing on the roles of women and African-Americans in cryptologic history, and the variety of languages in use throughout the world.

[8] The size of NCM's library nearly doubled with the donation of an extensive collection of papers, books, and other artifacts related to codes and ciphers from cryptologic historian and author David Kahn.

[12] Created in 1999, the standards are high for induction; honored individuals were innovators over their entire careers, whose expertise in various NSA subject matters far surpassed any of their peers, or who made major contributions to the structure and processes of American cryptology.