Born into a family that had participated in the Mexican Revolution, Leal lived in the United States beginning in 1927, studying at Northwestern University. There, in 1936, he met his future wife Gladys Clemens, with whom he had two sons, Antonio and Luis Alfonso. In 1939 he was naturalized as an American citizen. After serving in the Philippines during the Second World War, he resumed his literary studies at the University of Chicago, where in 1950 he acquired a doctorate in Spanish and Italian literature.
Leal was a pioneer in the field of Latin-American and Chicano literature. He taught briefly at the University of Mississippi, but uncomfortable with racial segregation transferred to Emory University and later to the University of Illinois before finally accepting a post at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1976. There he directed the Center for Chicano Studies from 1994 to 1996. He lectured as a guest professor at various universities and continued his academic career until well into his nineties. He published articles in Cuadernos Americanos and Historia Mexicana, and edited Ventana Abierta: Revista Latina de Literatura, Arte y Cultura. He was especially interested in Mexican storytelling, particularly the work of Mariano Azuela and Juan Rulfo, contributing substantially to the Encyclopedia of Latino Folklore. He authored some 45 books and more than four hundred articles. Among his students were the hispanists Merlin Foster, Sara Poot-Herrera, Francisco Lomelí, and María Herrera-Sobek.
A member of the Modern Language Association of America, Leal received the National Humanities Medal and was honored by the National Association for Chicano Studies in 1988. In 1991 he received the Order of the Aztec Eagle. Luis Leal has no relation to Luis Leal of Cleveland, TX.
Consuelo Hernández."Luis Leal: un inmigrante ejemplar." En rendido homenaje a Luis Leal (1907-2010). Víctor Fuentes, Francisco Lomelí and Sara Poot-Herrera (eds). Sponsored by Institute of Chicano Studies and University of California. Santa Barbara: College Editions/Bandanna Books, 2010. 164-169.
Vivancos Pérez, Ricardo F.『Apuntes de Don Luis Leal sobre la función del crítico.』One Hundred Years of Loyalty. In Honor of Luis Leal. Ed. María Herrera-Sobek, Francisco A. Lomelí and Sara Poot-Herrera. Mexico D.F.: UCSB, UC-Mexicanistas, UNAM, U del Claustro de Sor Juana, and Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, 2007. 965-77.
