Notre Dame College was established in Laxmibazar, Dhaka in November, 1949. It was established by the Roman Catholic Priests from the Congregation of Holy Cross for the reason of existing crisis in education sector of the new born East Pakistan of that time. It was Archbishop Graner, CSC, as Archbishop of Dhaka and leader of the Catholic Church in East Pakistan, invited the Congregation of Holy Cross Priest Society to found and administer a college in this new country. Initially, it was known as the St. Gregory College, an extension of the St. Gregory School, which was also established by the Congregation. It was relocated to its current location in Motijheel in 1954 and renamed to Notre Dame College. The Congregation of Holy Cross also maintains the University of Notre Dame, Portland University, and Kings and Stonehill College in the United States. The new name was a tribute to the University of Notre Dame, the alma mater of many of the faculty members. In French Notre Dame means Our Lady, that stands for Mother Mary.

From the very beginning the two main objectives of the founders of the college have been to provide education at a college level to Christian students and to provide quality and value based education to students for the benefit of contributing to the development of this country. In keeping with the ideals of social justice special emphasis is to be given to students who would otherwise be deprived of opportunity for such a quality and value based education due to their  economic condition, ethnic, rural or otherwise backward or deprived social situation. The educational objective is to instill in the student a love of God, his country and wisdom. Emphasis is given to character formation.

Notre Dame College is seen as  a family. All the students, teaching and non-teaching staff  and administrative staff are the members of Notre Dame Family. Notre Dame Family life is based on mutual respect, love, sharing of responsibility and common interest for the integral formation of the students. Here every one performs duty with sincerity, competency, and compassionately which bring a unique dimension to the Notre Dame Family. The glory of Notre Dame College does not lie on its glorious exam result only, but also in the opportunity it offers for the poor, under privileged and tribal students coming from different parts of the country.

At the present time the College receives no financial aid from the government of Bangladesh. It is supported entirely by tuition fees collected from the students.