The idea to establish the Central American Chess Association rose in 1962, Managua, Nicaragua, on the occasion of the Central American Team Tournament. Several Central American and Caribbean federations agreed to create the annual, regional team championship. Those federations who were members of FIDE at the time formed the Central American and Caribbean Chess Association (Confederación de Ajedrez de Centroamérica y el Caribe in Spanish) commonly referred to as CACAC.

More and more nations were invited to participate, those who were members of FIDE and even those who were not; number of participating teams grew quickly from five in its premier edition in 1963 up to ten just four years later.

The event was held in between 1963 and 1975 on a yearly basis. Most of countries hosted the event once with the exception of Venezuela, El Salvador and Nicaragua who were honoured to organize the championship twice. Despite common financial constrains and many organizing challenges the championship remained solid until 1975, while there are no reports from later years (probably the championship died intestate as did CACAC itself). It gave serious boost to development of chess in that part of the World and drew many young, promising chess players who became decent masters of international strength afterwards.

As for 1971 the president of the union was IA Raúl Monroy Vizcarra (Bolivia), and the general secretary was Mr. Paul Dougherty (Guatemala). In 1974 Alberto Caro of Venezuela was the chairman. The following federations were members of CACAC: Netherlands Antilles, The Bahamas, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Trinidad & Tobago, Venezuela.

Winners: 4x Cuba, 3x Wenezuela and Puerto Rico, 2x Nicaragua, 1x Mexico