The CCCLM has a history of over 40 years.  The origins of the organisation date back to 1957 when the Lord Mayors, meeting at the Melbourne Town Hall, agreed that a Capital Cities Exchange Bureau be established.  Before that, meetings of Lord Mayors were on an ad hoc basis.

The documents available do not indicate when a name change occurred, but in 1963 the Lord Mayors, at a meeting in Hobart, agreed to the continuing operation of the Australian Capital Cities Secretariat.  Each Council committed funding to cover the necessary operating costs of the Secretariat.

The 1982 the organisation adopted the new name of the Council of Capital City Lord Mayors.  It was also in this year that the Annual Conference of the Australian Capital Cities Secretariat initiated a research study into the role of the organisation and to determine a set of strategies to achieve the organisation's priorities. Subsequently, a report was prepared for, and presented to the Secretariat in 1983 by Dr John Halligan.  The report included the following Mission Statement and Objectives for the organisation: