Wilson was born in San Francisco, California, and she and her sister, Ann, grew up in Southern California and Taiwan before their Marine Corps father retired to the Seattle suburb of Bellevue. Nancy finished high school, then attended Pacific University in Oregon and Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle where she majored in art and German literature.

She then played solo gigs until 1974 when she quit college and moved to Canada to join her sister in Heart.Her older sister Ann and lead guitarist Roger Fisher, became the core of the Seattle/Vancouver rock band Heart. She and Heart guitarist Roger Fisher, brother of Ann's boyfriend/Heart's manager Mike Fisher, lived together for some time.

While Ann is the lead singer on the majority of the Heart recordings, Nancy is the lead vocalist on notable tracks like "Treat Me Well", "These Dreams", "Stranded", "There's the Girl" and "Will You Be There (In the Morning)" and frequently performs background and harmony vocals. Nancy is the band's rhythm and lead guitarist. In 1999 Nancy Wilson released the solo live album, Live at McCabe's Guitar Shop. Wilson also has gone on to release an instrumental album called "Baby Guitars;" an EP to help babies fall asleep.

Nancy married U.S. film director and former Rolling Stone writer, Cameron Crowe, on July 27, 1986, and they have twin sons, William James Crowe and Curtis Wilson Crowe, born January 23, 2000. Wilson filed for divorce from Crowe on September 23, 2010, citing "irreconcilable differences." The divorce filing stated that the former couple had separated on June 15, 2008.The divorce was finalized on December 8, 2010.

Nancy has played a role in composing music for most of Crowe's films including Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky, and Elizabethtown. She also had cameos in Crowe's The Wild Life (1984) as David's wife and Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) credited as "Beautiful Girl in Corvette"