Cameron was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., on November 9, 1939. His family moved shortly afterwards to Florida. He received a BA from Los Angeles Pacific College in 1961, an MA from California State University in Los Angeles the following year and a PhD from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1966. He held posts as an assistant psychology professor at University of Wisconsin–Stout (1966–67) and Wayne State University (1967–68), before becoming an associate professor at the University of Louisville (1970–73) and the Fuller Graduate School of Psychology (part of the Fuller Theological Seminary) (1976–79). In 1979, he became an associate professor of Marriage and Family Therapy at the University of Nebraska.