Ciller was born in 1946 to an affluent family in Istanbul, where she later graduated from the University of Bosporus with a degree in economics. She continued her studies in the United States, earning graduate degrees from the Universities of New Hampshire and Connecticut and attending Yale University. Ciller then returned to Turkey to teach and, at the age of 36, she became the nation's youngest full professor. Moreover, at the age of 17 she had married a man whom she persuaded to take her surname (a departure from custom almost without precedent in Turkey). Together with her husband, the owner of a chain of convenience stores and a former banker, she amassed a fortune of some 60 million dollars through real estate speculation.

Although she was wealthy, intellectually accomplished, and professionally prominent (she was fluent in English and German and the author of nine works on economics), Ciller harbored political aspirations. She joined the ruling True Path party (DYP) in 1990, was elected to the 450-seat legislative assembly the following year (one of eight women), and was named economics minister in Demirel's coalition government. Although she advocated greater privatization of state-owned firms and a balanced budget, it was during her tenure as economics minister that government debt soared, inflation climbed to 65 percent, and the country suffered a downgrading of its international credit rating.

Despite these woes, the DYP selected Ciller as its leader at a special party conference on June 13, 1993. The office of prime minister had been vacant since Demirel's election as president in May following the death of President Turgut Ozal in April. When Ciller presented her Cabinet, more than half the ministers were new, and many longtime Demirel supporters were out of policy-making positions. As she assumed power in Turkey, Ciller's greatest challenges included dealing both with the rising tide of violence among Kurds in southeastern Turkey and with the pressing need to reduce government spending.

The conflict between pro-Islamic and pro-secular Turks came to the forefront of Turkish national debate in 1995, following parliamentary elections in which the pro-Islamic Welfare party won 21 percent of the popular vote. While hardly an overwhelming democratic endorsement of its popularity, support for the Welfare party was greater than that for any other political party, including the ruling secularist True Path party. Tensions increased in 1996 when the Welfare party leader, Necmettin Erbakan, struck a behind-the-scenes deal with Prime Minister Ciller, who was under investigation for corruption charges. Officials from the Welfare party, who had conducted the investigation against the prime minister, allegedly informed Ciller that the investigation had turned up sufficient evidence to bring an indictment but agreed to offer her political immunity if she would resign from power and form a governing coalition with the Welfare party under the leadership of Erbakan. Ciller agreed to the offer, and in 1996, Erbakan became prime minister of Turkey. He was the first nonsecular leader of the country since the Ottoman Empire was dissolved, after seven centuries of Islamic rule, during World War I.