Neil Ernest Compton was born on August 1, 1912, in Falling Springs Flats in Benton County, the son of David Compton and Ida Wilmouth. He attended Bentonville public schools, and in 1935 completed degrees in zoology and geology at the University of Arkansas. He married Laurene Putman in 1935; they had three children. He enrolled at the University of Arkansas Medical School in Little Rock, graduating in 1939. His first job after completing medical school was as a county health officer in Washington and Bradley counties. He served in the United States Navy's medical corps during World War II, being stationed in Guadalcanal. After the war he returned to Benton County, where he opened a practice specializing in gynecology and obstetrics.

Compton possessed a lifelong passion for exploring and photographing the outdoors. He especially loved the Buffalo River basin area in the Ozark region in northwest Arkansas. But in 1956 the basin was threatened with destruction when the United States Army Corps of Engineers renewed plans to build dams on the Buffalo River at Gilbert and Lone Rock. Protests by conservationists and fishermen resulted in a survey by a team from the National Park Service in October 1961 to determine if the river warranted protection as part of the National Park System. In May, 1962, Harold and Margaret Hedges of the Ozark Wilderness Waterways Club of Kansas City, Missouri, arranged for United States Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, a noted conservationist, to float the Buffalo River. Following the float, a meeting on the University of Arkansas campus on May 24, 1962, resulted in the formation of the Ozark Society, Inc., To Save the Buffalo River. Compton was elected its president. The Ozark Society launched a campaign to prevent the damming of the river which included appealing to elected officials, inviting journalists on float trips, and river cleanups. The campaign realized success when Congress passed legislation which was signed by President Richard Nixon on March 1, 1972, to create the Buffalo National River. The legislation gave the river the unique designation of the nation's first national river.

Compton's enthusiasm for the outdoors was supplemented by his interest in local history. He served as president of the Benton County Historical Association in the 1970s. Compton retired from medical practice in 1976. In 1982 his first book, The High Ozarks: A Vision of Eden; was published. This was followed in 1992 by The Battle for the Buffalo River and The Buffalo River in Black and White in 1997.

His activities as a leading citizen and conservationist earned him numerous accolades. In 1963 he received the American Motors Corporation Conservation Award. The University of Arkansas awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1986, and in 1987 the National Park Service named him an honorary park ranger. In 1990 he received the first annual Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Award awarded by Congress. That year he also became the first recipient of the University of Arkansas Alumni Community Service Award. In 1992 he received the National Wildlife Federation Achievement Award and was inducted into the Arkansas Outdoor Sportsman's Hall of Fame. In 1993 the Arkansas State Library Association honored him with its Arkansiana Award. In 1996 the Arkansas League of Women Voters presented him with the Horizon Award. He received the Ageless Hero Award for Community Service in 1998. Compton died on February 10, 1999. (Biographical note copied from the finding aid for MC 1091, Neil Compton Papers).