Established on 6th day of September 1979, Dera Natung Government College with its erstwhile name ‘Government College, Itanagar’ aimed at imparting higher education to young and inquisitive minds of the state at a point of time when the opportunity was scarce in the state. The founders had an ambitious endeavour not merely to make it a centre for offering Degrees but also to let the youths explore new areas of knowledge, providing a platform for budding leadership in all walks of life, preparing the youths for future challenges in personal and social spheres and grooming them as competent human resources, who, in turn, could promote the high social ideals such as equality, social justice, communal harmony and cultural plurality and other vital objectives of this college.
The college initially functioned from Govt. Higher Secondary School building, Itanagar, and fulfilled the educational aspirations of a few ambitious students with four departments viz. English, Hindi, Economics and History in the evening shift. In 1986, it was relocated to its present sprawling campus with a huge Administrative and Academic Block and continued both in the night and the day shifts till 1990 when the night shift was finally done away with. Since then, the college has progressed in leaps and bounds in terms of infrastructure, student strength, faculty position, impressive student performance and academic research. The college has been assessed and accredited by NAAC, Bangalore, for 3 cycles consecutively.