Glickman was born in Wichita, Kansas. The Glickman family operated Glickman Inc., a full-service scrap metal operation, since 1915 and Kansas Metal, an automobile and appliance shredder, since 1994. Glickman Inc. was founded by Jacob Glickman and later continued and expanded by Milton and Bill Glickman. With the death of Milton Glickman, Dan's father, in December 1999, Dan and his siblings Norman and Sharon Glickman carried on the family business until it was sold in 2002.

He attended Kansas State University and graduated from University of Michigan, where he was a classmate with one of Gore's Chiefs of Staff, Charles Burson, and received his JD from The George Washington University Law School in 1969.

In 1969 and 1970, Glickman worked as a trial attorney for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, then was a partner in a law firm, Sargent, Klenda and Glickman. Between 1973 and 1976 he served as president of the Wichita School Board. In 1976, he was elected to the House of Representatives as a Democrat from Kansas, defeating an eight-term Republican incumbent. Secretary Glickman was a leading congressional expert on general aviation policy and wrote landmark legislation providing product liability protection for small airplane manufacturers. In his final term, he was the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He held open hearings to bring the intelligence community's post-Cold War activities to light and began a committee investigation into the Aldrich Ames espionage case. He was defeated for reelection, by Todd Tiahrt, in the 1994 congressional elections, one of 34 Democrats to lose their seats.

Following his defeat, he was appointed by President Bill Clinton to be the Secretary of Agriculture, where he served from 1995 to 2001. After Clinton's term ended, Glickman became the director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University. In 2004, the Motion Picture Association of America announced that Glickman would replace Jack Valenti as its chief lobbyist.