Byron Conner, M.D. was born in Denver, Colorado, the oldest of eleven children. He joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church at age nine. He attended Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska from 1966-1968 as a premed student and 1970-1972, majoring in sociology and then theology. He served in the US Army from 1968-1970 including a tour in Vietnam. He attended San Bernardino Valley College and California State College at San Bernardino (now a university) to take up courses he done poorly at Union. He attended Loma Linda University School of Medicine from 1976-1979. After his residency, he did two years of duty with the US Public Health Service, an experience the prepared him for missionary work.