Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 160 Fellows (however, counting only the student body but not Fellows, Trinity has somewhat fewer students than Homerton College). It is also the wealthiest Oxbridge college with an independent financial endowment of approximately £621 million (as of 2005). Of this amount approx. £75 million is part of the college's Amalgamated Trust Funds, which is dedicated for specific purposes. In addition to which Trinity's land, including holdings in the Port of Felixstowe and the Cambridge Science Park, is insured for approx. £266.5 million (this does not include all fixed assets). Trinity considers itself to be "a world-leading academic institution with an outstanding record of education, learning and research".

Like its sister college, Christ Church, Oxford, it has traditionally been considered the most aristocratic of the Cambridge colleges - and it has generally been the academic institution of choice of the Royal Family (King Edward VII, King George VI, Prince Henry of Gloucester, Prince William of Gloucester and Edinburgh and Prince Charles were all undergraduates). The Push Guide to Which University (2005) called it "arguably the grandest Cambridge college" and it has been called "the most magnificent collegiate institution in England". However, the proportion of state school to private school pupils is now roughly 2:3. Nevertheless, in 2006 it had the lowest state school intake (39%) of any college, and though this figure fluctuates slightly from year to year, on a rolling three-year average Trinity has admitted a smaller proportion of state school pupils (42%) than any other Oxbridge college. It first admitted women undergraduates in 1978; women had been admitted as graduate students from 1976, and the College appointed its first female fellow in 1977.

Trinity has a very strong academic tradition, with members having won 31 Nobel Prizes (of the 83 Nobel Prizes awarded to members of Cambridge University), four Fields Medals (mathematics), one Abel Prize (mathematics) and two Templeton Prizes (religion). It had the highest proportion of students gaining Firsts in their exams of any college in 2008.

Trinity has many notable alumni - including princes, spies, poets and prime ministers (it has educated six British prime ministers) - but perhaps its two most distinguished are Isaac Newton and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Trinity has many college societies, and its rowing club is the First and Third Trinity Boat Club. Trinity's May Ball, named after the Boat Club, is one of the largest of Cambridge's May Balls. Trinity also boasts the oldest mathematical university society in the United Kingdom, the Trinity Mathematical Society.

The first formalised version of the rules of football, known as the Cambridge Rules, was drawn up by Cambridge student representatives of leading boarding schools at Trinity College in 1848.