Sampson Community College, one of the fifty-eight institutions in the North Carolina System of Community Colleges, was established in September 1965, under the provisions of Chapter 115-A of the General Statutes of North Carolina as an extension unit of Goldsboro Industrial Education Center (now Wayne Community College). The first institutional site was one office and one classroom located in the Sampson County Board of Education Building on Rowan Road.

The institution moved from temporary offices in June 1966 to an old elementary school on Highway 421, six miles north of Clinton, and began the first curriculum programs in September of the same year. By an act of the 1967 General Assembly, the college became an independent unit and was called "Sampson Technical Institute." The first Board of Trustees was appointed in February 1968.

As the institution grew, the need for a new campus with modern facilities was realized. A $500,000 bond issue was approved by Sampson County voters in April 1972. A vocational storage building was occupied on the Highway 24 campus in July 1974, and the main building on this new campus, the North Building, was occupied in January 1976. A new vocational shop building, East Building, was occupied in the fall of 1977 allowing for the expansion of several vocational programs.

In 1979, through enabling legislation of the General Assembly, the Board of Trustees approved the school's name change to "Sampson Technical College." The college added additional facilities in 1982 with the construction of a 6,000 sq. ft. vocational shop building on the main campus and the county's provision of 8,000 sq. ft. in the new Courthouse Annex for the Continuing Education Division. In August 1987, the college completed construction of the West Building, and began erecting the South Building, which was occupied in September 1988.

In October 1987, the college changed its name to "Sampson Community College." The Board of Trustees approved changing the name of West Building to W. W. Kitchin Hall on August 21, 1989, and South Building to the Robert D. Warren Student Center on June 10, 1997. In the fall of 1998, two new buildings, the Technology Center and the Activities Center, were occupied.