LeVar is an actor, director, educator & cofounder of the award-winning Skybrary App; former host and executive producer of PBS's Reading Rainbow; and a lifelong children's literacy advocate. Burton currently hosts his own podcast, ‘LeVar Burton Reads’ now in Season 9, sharing the best short fiction and handpicked by the best voice in podcasting and has a YouTube Series ‘This Is My Story’ which highlights racism in America.

LeVar recently teamed up with FABLE and now has his first premium book club. LeVar joined other classmates in MasterClass and now his own class which premiered in June 2021. He also was invited to guest-host Jeopardy!® in July 2021. 

As a result of COVID-19, in 2020 TwitterLive hosted livestream short story readings presented by LeVar to millions of his fans and avid readers. In continuing his charitable efforts, LeVar and Incyte have partnered to advocate for people with (MPNs) Myeloproliferative neoplasms to return to their healthcare providers and seek the help they did not receive during this time.

Burton starred as Kunta Kinte in the acclaimed television mini-series Roots.  Burton also starred as Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation television series which aired in syndication from 1987 to 1994 and also in feature films.

LeVar has been nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards along with 27 Daytime Emmy nominations, culminating in 21 wins. During its 26-year run 1983 to 2009 Reading Rainbow was not only one of the longest running children’s television shows in history but won more than 25 awards including 10 for outstanding series and the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award. LeVar has also been nominated twice for the Spoken Word Grammy® Award and won in 1999, for narrating The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.

On June 11, 2019, Sacramento city leaders honored LeVar with the Official Renaming and Dedication of Richfield Park in Meadowview, where LeVar is from, to LeVar Burton Park.