The UWI is an international university which draws most of its students from the Commonwealth Caribbean. In addition to its three main campuses in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, The UWI maintains centres in the Bahamas and in the participating non-campus countries where adult education and other outreach programmes of the University are co-ordinated.

The UWI started in Jamaica in 1948 as the University College of the West Indies, in special relationship with the University of London. It was granted university status, with the power to award its own degrees, in 1962. Campuses were established at St. Augustine in Trinidad in 1960 and at Cave Hill, Barbados in 1963.