At the age of 9, he shifted to Islamabad where he continued his studies in Saint Paul's School. Atif came back to Lahore in 1995 where he continued his studies in Divisional Public School (DPS)Model Town Lahore. He was selected in his school cricket team as a bowler. He was putting his best efforts to become a professional cricketer.Atif spent most of his school life in DPS model town.At that time he was more interested in cricket.He left DPS after matriculation exams.

One day he was singing with his friends at the college canteen. His friends urged him to participate in the singing competition on Independence Day celebrations at PAF College Lahore and Sargodha in 1998. He performed there and won the competition. After HSc, Atif joined Punjab Institute of Computer Science Gulberg Campus. He was not able to give time to cricket due to his busy study schedule here.  His hobby of singing continued with him entering the singing competition of his college. There were a total of 8 participants. The media team entered Atif's name in the competition at the eleventh hour. He won the competition by singing the hit number Duur of Strings. He kept on winning these competitions every semester until he announced that he will no longer participate in them so that someone else can also win the competition.

He met Goher at his college. Goher was a talented guitarist. Together they practiced a lot and started doing mini concerts for their friends. Atif used to perform Junoon and Strings songs at these concerts. They started performing in their college, McDonalds and other restaurants as well.  Atif recorded the legendary song Aadat at Mekal Hassan's Studio. Mekal injected his professionalism in the song to make it worth listening time after time. Atif formed the band Jal, which means water. The song became popular on different musical websites in Pakistan. The song was also being on aired on major Radio channels of Pakistan like City FM 89, FM 100, Mast FM 103, FM 105 etc. Video for this song got released in December on Ary The Music and then it was played on almost all the channels.  

Atif released his first album Jal Pari on 18th July 2004 by Sound Master and IC records. It was declared to be the best selling album of the year within just 5 months of the release.  In the meantime Atif also cleared his Bachelors in Computer Science (hons) from University of Central Punjab.  On 14th April 2007 Atif Aslam performed in Royal Albert Hall.