Duke's varsity teams have won eight NCAA national championships. The women's golf team has won four (1999, 2002, 2005 and 2006), the men's basketball team has won three (1991, 1992, and 2001), and the men's soccer team has won one (1986). Duke's major historic rival, especially in basketball, has been the Tar Heels of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,  (see "UNC-Duke rivalry").

 

Duke teams that have been ranked in the top ten nationally in the 2000s include men's and women's basketball, men's and women's tennis, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's cross country, men's and women's lacrosse, women's field hockey, and men's and women's golf. Eight of these teams were ranked either first or second in the country during 2004-05. According to a 2006 evaluation conducted by the NCAA, Duke's student-athletes have the highest graduation rate of any institution in the nation at 91%. Excluding students who leave or transfer in good academic standing, the graduation rate of student-athletes is 97%.

Duke University's men's basketball team is one of the best-known in US college sports, and its rivalry with North Carolina is widely noted. The fourth-winningest college basketball program of all-time, the team has had great success over the past 25 years under coach Mike Krzyzewski (often simply called 'Coach K'), whom the basketball court is named after.

Duke has won three NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championships and been in 14 Final Fours. Seventy-one players have been drafted in the NBA Draft. Additionally, Duke has had an Academic All-American on the team fourteen years. Duke has 16 Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championships (1960, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1978, 1986, 1988, 1992, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006), the most of any team in the ACC. Duke also has won the regular season 18 times (1954, 1958, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1986, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2006). Duke is second, behind only UCLA, in total weeks ranked as the number one team in the nation by the AP with 110 weeks.  The Blue Devils have the second longest streak in the AP Top 25 in history with 200 consecutive appearances from 1996 to 2007. This streak only trails UCLA's 221 consecutive polls from 1966-1980 as the longest of all-time.  The streak ended with the AP poll released on February 12, 2007