The series originally centered on Denise Huxtable (Lisa Bonet) and the life of students at Hillman College, a fictional historically Black college in Virginia.

It was inspired by student life at Hampton University, While it was a spin-off from The Cosby Show, A Different World typically addressed issues that were avoided by The Cosby Show writers (race and class relations, or the Equal Rights Amendment).

The pair, who have a 17-year-old daughter together, seem to get along better than most married couples do, which is why when Chante came into the office we had to ask her, “girl, what’s up with y’all”?Meg Ryan was originally cast for this role, but she decided to pursue a film career, so Marisa Tomei was cast.The first season of Hillman's student body consisted of both black and white students, but this was changed at the beginning of the second season and a very predominantly-black student body maintained until the series ended.One episode that aired in 1990 was one of the first American network television episodes to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic.The original premise was to have a white student there and have Lena Horne as an acting teacher, but in production, the premise changed from being a story about a white girl in a black college to a black girl (Denise Huxtable) in a black college with a white friend.