Bond graduated from Deerfield Academy in 1956 , Princeton University in 1960 and received his law degree from the University of Virginia, where he graduated first in his class. He served as a clerk in the Fifth Circuit Court in Atlanta, Georgia. Bond practiced law at the Washington, DC firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher before returning to his native Mexico, Missouri to run for Congress in 1968. Bond won the Republican primary in August 1968 and narrowly lost the general election to the incumbent Congressman Bill Hungate, a Democrat.

In 1969, Bond became an Assistant Attorney General under John Danforth. Before being elected State Auditor in 1970, Bond was chief counsel of Missouri's Consumer Protection Division.

He was elected governor in 1972 and 1980, serving from 1973 to 1977 and from 1981 to 1985. In a surprising upset, Bond was defeated for re-election in 1976 by Democrat Joseph P. Teasdale, then Jackson County Prosecutor. In 1980 Bond made a successful comeback, defeating fellow Republican and incumbent Lieutenant Governor Bill Phelps in the primary and defeating Teasdale in November.

Bond was succeeded in 1985 by John Ashcroft, a fellow Republican. After Sen. Thomas Eagleton decided not to run for re-election, Bond was elected senator in 1986, defeating Lieutenant Governor Harriett Woods. Bond was narrowly re-elected in 1992 over St. Louis County Councilwoman Geri Rothman-Serot. In 1998 Bond decisively defeated Attorney General Jay Nixon and Libertarian Tamara Millay after a hard-fought campaign, and in 2004 he handily won re-election over Democratic challenger State Treasurer Nancy Farmer with 56 percent of the vote.

While governor, on June 25, 1976 he signed an executive order rescinding the Extermination Order issued by governor Lilburn Boggs on October 27, 1838.

On October 5, 2005, Kit Bond was one of only nine Senators to vote against the Interrogation Limits bill, which strictly defines the methods of interrogation that can be used by US forces.

On March 28, 2006, Kit Bond voted against creating the Office of Public Integrity, which would have looked into charges of corruption by lawmakers .

His son Sam (who recently completed a tour of duty in Iraq) is a member of the United States Marine Corps, making Bond one of only a few federal elected officials with a child serving in uniform.

Bond's personal life has seen tribulation. After winning his second term as Governor, Bond sued his investment manager and PaineWebber, alleging his $1.3 million trust fund had been drained. He was one of several clients who sued, and he settled in 1996 for $900,000. In 1994, his wife, Carolyn, filed for a divorce, which was finalized the following year.

Bond married Linda Pell, now Linda Bond, in 2002. She grew up in the Kansas City, Mo., suburb of Gladstone and works as a consultant to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. She and Bond had dated for about a year before they were engaged on May 17, 2001, and had also dated in 1996 and 1997. It is her second marriage as well.