Raised in San Antonio, Texas, he graduated from Robert E. Lee High School, now the Performing Arts School, and Incarnate Word College. He received his Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the highly regarded UC San Diego's Professional Actor Training Program in 2000, and moved to Los Angeles shortly thereafter. Since that time, he has worked consistently in all areas of the entertainment industry, including film, television and theatre.

Film credits include Touchstone's The Alamo and several independent films. Television credits prior to Desperate Housewives include a series regular role on The Grubbs, recurring roles on Six Feet Under and The Division, and guest star roles on Joan of Arcadia, Kingpin, 24 and JAG, as well as NYPD Blue and two other Steven Bochco series, Philly and City of Angels. He also guest starred on ABC's The George Lopez Show last season.

Chavira starred in a production of Tracers at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles, and has worked at some of the country's top regional theatres, including at the La Jolla Playhouse in Dogeaters, The Guthrie in Jack and Jill, the San Diego Rep in Bandido, and most recently the Seattle Rep & Missouri Rep, where he starred in a co-production of Living Out.

His success on Desperate Housewives has afforded him the opportunity to help in the fight against Breast Cancer, a cause that became highly personal to him at the age of 15 when he lost his own mother, Elizabeth Ries Chavira, to breast and ovarian cancer when she was 43 years old.

Chavira is San Antonio's honorary spokesman for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, and last June served as the National Team Captain for the Race for the Cure in Washington, D.C..

Chavira was the 2005 co-spokesperson for the Lee National Denim Day breast cancer fundraiser that raised millions of dollars for research and education regarding the disease.

Chavira has one son, Tomas Antonio Chavira, born in 2003.

Son of Bexar County's Judge Juan Antonio Chavira.