She was educated at the Beirut College for Women, Anderson College, Ball State University and Indiana University Bloomington, receiving a PhD in comparative literature from the latter institution. Accad taught at Beirut University College in 1978 and 1984 and at Northwestern University in 1991. She is Professor Emerita in Francophone, Arabophone, African, Middle East, Women's Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and the Lebanese American University in Beirut.[2]