Wynn Kapit graduated in 1955 from the University of Miami, Florida with honors in Business Administration and Law. He then attended Art Center School in Los Angeles and worked in New York as a graphic designer and advertising art director from 1960-66. He moved to California to pursue a painting career and was given a one-man show at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco in 1968. He then attended the University of California at Berkeley and received a Masters in Painting and worked as a portraitist and teacher of figure drawing.

While taking a class in human anatomy at San Francisco City College, he discovered a way to effectively learn the subject by coloring in drawings, diagrams and names. The teacher of the course, Lawrence Elson, Ph.D. agreed to help him produce a coloring book. Elson wrote and Kapit designed and illustrated The Anatomy Coloring Book, which was published in 1977 and has been a widely-translated bestseller ever since. The Physiology Coloring Book was published in 1987, with the assistance of two professors from Berkeley: Robert Macey and Esmail Meisami. The Geography Coloring Book was published in 1991; Kapit drew the maps and wrote the text. The Anatomy Coloring Book was published in a second edition in 1993, and second editions of Geography and Physiology Coloring Books will be published in 1997.

Robert Macey is currently Professor Emeritus in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a Professor of Physiology and Chair of the Department of Physiology-Anatomy at Berkeley. Dr. Macey has written extensive research articles and reviews on membrane transport as well as a successful text on human physiology. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Esmail Meisami is a professor in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Illinois. He has authored and edited books on biology, physiology, human growth and development, and developmental neurobiology and has written numerous research papers on sensory systems and hormones in brain development. He received his Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of California at Berkeley.