He was the eldest son of former U.S. Vice President Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (1908–1979) and his wife Mary Todhunter "Tod" Clark (1908–1999).

He was educated at Deerfield Academy, at Dartmouth College, and later earned a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Business Administration.

At Dartmouth, his father's alma mater, he was a member of Green Key, co-edited Dartmouth's freshman handbook, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa (as had his grandfather, John D. Rockefeller Jr.) Rockefeller was vice president (1968–1972) and chief executive (1972–1980) of the International Basic Economy Corporation, a New York based commercial genetics and agribusiness concern, founded by his father in 1946.

Its activities included the development of corn production in Latin America, and the construction of thousands of low-cost homes in Mexico.

Rockefeller served as chairman of Pocantico Associates, a private capital and real estate investment company, and was a trustee of the Institute of International Education, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, the Museum of Modern Art, the Americas Society, and the New York Blood Center.