Kamal Hossain was born on 20 April 1937 in Calcutta. His family moved to Dhaka, East Bengal in 1949 after the partition of British India. Hossain attended St. Gregory's High School, where his classmates included the future academic Anisuzzaman. He received a two-year scholarship to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, United States at age 16, and studied economics before pursuing a master's degree from the University of Michigan. Hossain's American classmates included Richard V. Allen, future national security advisor to President Ronald Reagan. In the U.S., he joined the Pakistan Students Association with fellow Bengalis Nurul Islam and Golam Wahed Choudhury. Hossain was a member of the association's leadership committee, which was led by Munir Ahmed Khan.