Sabrina was born on March 21, 1958, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Eager to leave the strictly segregated lifestyle of 1950s Louisiana behind, her family moved to Los Angeles, California soon after her birth. Her parents divorced, and Sabrina lived with her maternal grandmother, Sce Ethel Holmes, in south central LA until her mother's remarriage. When Sabrina was 10 years old, she returned to live with her mother and stepfather in Inglewood, California. Acting interested her from a young age, and she performed in many school plays, starring as Cinderella in elementary school. Sabrina also took on leadership roles, including high school class president at St. Matthias Catholic Girls High School and a Girls' State delegate.
After high school Sabrina attended UCLA, earning her undergraduate degree in theater. During her time at UCLA she became frustrated by the lack of parts offered to African American students, and in response formed a black students' theater group to allow them to put on their own shows. In September 1980, she began graduate work at the Yale School of Drama, where she earned her master's degree in acting.
In 1984, Le Beauf auditioned for the role of the eldest Huxtable daughter Sondra on The Cosby Show. 26 years old at the time of her audition, she was initially considered too old to play one of the children, being only 10 years younger than Phylicia Rashad, the actress who played her mother, Clair Huxtable. Pop singer Whitney Houston also auditioned for the same part, but refused to sign the contract as she also wanted to become a singer. Her refusal to sign the contract which would bind her to the show and put a singing career on the back burner forced the producers to give the role to Le Beauf. Sabrina went on to play Sondra Huxtable for all eight seasons of The Cosby Show, from 1984 through the series' end in 1992. Sondra, a Princeton graduate that went on to marry and start a family of her own, was a popular character on the show; in 1988, 50 million viewers tuned in to watch Sondra give birth to twins, named Winnie and Nelson in honor of Nelson and Winnie Mandela.

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