Professor Williams grew up in Enfield, North Carolina. He took his undergraduate degree at Wake Forest, where he graduated in 1962, summa cum laude, and with Phi Beta Kappa. He was a Fulbright scholar in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1962-63, and then took his Bachelor of Divinity degree at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1966. He went from there to doctoral studies at Harvard, earning a PhD in 1972. He came to Colorado College to teach in 1971, and he retired in 2007.