Kiowa Gordon was born on March 25, 1990, in Berlin, Germany, as Kiowa Joseph Gordon. He was a young child when he relocated to the United States, specifically to the Hualapai Indian Reservation in Peach Springs, Arizona, where he spent part of his childhood.
Gordon's family moved around frequently during his formative years, eventually settling in Phoenix, Arizona. It was in this city that he landed the role of Embry Call in The Twilight Saga, a significant milestone in his acting career.
In addition to his work in The Twilight Saga, Gordon has also appeared in the indie film, The Lesser Blessed, for which he won the Best Supporting Actor award at the 2013 American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco.
Furthermore, Kiowa Gordon was a series regular on the Sundance original series, The Red Road, starring Jason Momoa, Julianne Nicholson, and Martin Henderson. Starting in 2021, he became a series regular on AMC's hit drama, Dark Winds, an adaptation of Tony Hillerman's Leaphorn and Chee novels.
Kiowa Gordon's family background is diverse, with his mother, Camille, hailing from the Hualapai Nation, and his father, Tom, having Scottish, Jewish, and Choctaw ancestry. He is one of eight siblings, including Cheyenne, Josh, Lakota, MacGregor, Aaron, Sean, and Sariah.