In the television series, Steve Austin takes on special high-risk government missions using his superhuman bionic powers.

As originally conceived by Caidin, Austin is a former US Army helicopter pilot who served in Vietnam before transferring to the Air Force and then into NASA.

One of Austin's best friends is Dr. Rudy Wells, a doctor and scientist who is a specialist in the newly emerging field of bionics; unknown to Wells, a secret American government intelligence agency, the Office of Strategic Operations (OSO; later changed to Office of Scientific Intelligence or OSI for TV) has been looking at a way of reducing agent casualties.

Wells is ordered to perform the procedure on Austin, who expresses a desire to commit suicide after learning about the loss of his limbs.

Caidin and the TV series treat this differently; Caidin's Austin receives a sophisticated miniature camera (activated by pressing a hidden shutter implanted under Austin's skin after which the eye has to be removed before development of the film) but otherwise remains blinded in that eye, while the television version not only restores sight but also has extreme telescopic magnification and infrared capabilities.

Austin becomes a top agent, traveling the world to fight everything from terrorism (the most common target of the literary version of the character) to even alien invasion on television.

As a military officer he remains an active member of the NASA Astronaut Corps, but the media describes his command of the Athena Rescue mission (necessary because his bionic strength is needed) as a surprise.

Yet in the TV pilot, Austin is initially hesitant to work for the OSI because, he says, "I don't want to kill people," although he appears to do just that in the subsequent mission.

Lee Majors made frequent guest appearances on the spin-off series, which springboarded from Jaime being brought back to life after her bionics failed; a consequence of this was she lost all memory of her relationship to Austin.

A later episode reveals that Austin's biological father was also an Air Force pilot and was killed in the crash of his C-47 Skytrain in the China-Burma-India Theater during World War II.

In the first (The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman), which takes place several years after Austin retires from the OSI, it is revealed that he had a son, Michael, born in the mid-1960s.