Pompeo was born in Orange, California, the son of Dorothy (née Mercer) and Wayne Pompeo.[8][9] He is of Italian ancestry. His paternal grandmother was born in Caramanico Terme.[10] While living in nearby Santa Ana, California he attended Los Amigos High School in the adjacent city of Fountain Valley, California where he played power forward on the basketball team, graduating in 1982.[11] He then attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point where he majored in mechanical engineering, graduating first in his class in 1986 and subsequently serving in the Army as an Armor Branch cavalry officer from 1986 to 1991.[12] He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He then worked as a lawyer for Williams & Connolly.[13]