Chace Crawford grew up in Plano, Texas. His father is a dermatologist and his mother is a teacher. He has one sibling, a younger sister, Candice Crawford, who is Miss Missouri USA 2008. Crawford played football and golf in high school. He graduated from Trinity Christian Academy in 2003. Although he worked as a model in Dallas, he never pursued acting. After high school, he moved to Malibu, California, to attend Pepperdine University. He struggled to identify a career path, vacillating between advertising, business and communications majors. Midway through his second year, Crawford's mother encouraged him to pursue acting. He credits her for initiating this bold move. She states that "it was a practical move," based on a career aptitude test he had taken in high school which revealed that he was best suited for a career in the performing arts. He was signed by the first talent agent that interviewed him, and then committed full-time to acting studies.

Crawford moved to Los Angeles to attend Pepperdine University and while there, he began acting as a hobby.

In 2006, Crawford appeared in Lifetime's television movie Long Lost Son in 2006, in which he portrayed the son of Gabrielle Anwar's character. Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith, Long Lost Son told the story of a mother who realizes 14 years later that the son and husband she believed to have drowned are still alive.

Crawford also starred alongside Steven Strait, Taylor Kitsch, Sebastian Stan and Toby Hemingway in Screen Gems' The Covenant. The movie follows four young men who belong to a supernatural legacy and are forced to battle a fifth power long thought to have died. Directed by Renny Harlin, The Covenant opened at #1 in the box office.

Crawford recently wrapped production on the Wingman Productions film Loaded, starring alongside Jesse Metcalfe and Monica Keena. Crawford will next be seen starring in the independent movie She Lived in Los Angeles. Haley Bennett from Music and Lyrics co-stars and Mickey Liddell is directing.

In The CW's new drama Gossip Girl, Crawford currently plays Nate Archibald, a young man uneasy with all the privileges that have been handed to him by his family, and who finds himself in a love triangle with his longtime girlfriend, Blair (Leighton Meester), and the love of his life, Serena (Blake Lively), whom he had slept with behind Blair's back.