Clear Path International was founded in October 2000 by four aid workers active in central Vietnam where accidents from war-time explosives happen every week.

Martha Roben, James Hathaway, Kristen Leadem and Imbert Matthee saw an urgent need for an organization that could provide services for the thousands of accident survivors in this heavily mine-affected region. The group raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from private-sector and, later, government sponsors in the United States for a comprehensive array of medical, socio-economic and psycho-social rehabilitations services for men, women and children injured by peacetime explosions along Vietnam's central coast.

Donor interest to provide similar services elsewhere led CPI to establish programs for landmine accident survivors in Cambodia in 2001 and along the Thai-Burma border in 2002. In 2007, the U.S. Department of State's Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (WRA) awarded Clear Path a multi-year subcontract to establish, implement and direct a victim assistance program. CPI is now an independent grant recipient of the Department of State with a growing number of partners and programs in Afghanistan. In 2011, CPI began a micro-lending program benefitting female heads of household in a mine-saturated region of Laos.