Lake himself was born in New York City. He attended Middlesex School and Harvard College, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1961. Lake studied international economics at Trinity College, Cambridge for two years and later received a Ph.D from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1974 after completing a doctoral dissertation titled "Caution and concern: the making of American policy toward South Africa, 1946-1971." He later (in 2001) co-edited a festschrift for his Princeton mentor, Richard H. Ullman.