In 1990, four men and four women sang together for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's Easter Dinner, which is an outreach dinner with skits and songs used to tell the story of Easter and the message of the Gospel. The men and women chose to call themselves Jubilation and sang again for the 1991 Easter dinner.

In the fall 1991 semester, two of the original Jubilation members (Elena Chang and Jeannie Lee) decided to make Jubilation a full-fledged a cappella group. There were sign-ups at InterVarsity's large group meetings and the group that year was 9 women strong.

Up until the 1993 fall semester, Jubilation had unofficially been a part of InterVarsity. During the year, Jubilation took its first steps towards becoming an independent group by becoming a sister movement of InterVarsity.

During the 1994-1995 school year, Jubilation changed its name to Jubilation! to put more oomph in its name and to more accurately reflect the meaning of the word jubilation. It also held auditions for the first time, became a completely independent group apart from InterVarsity, and gained recognition at Columbia University through Earl Hall.