This document includes two suites of zircon U-Pb ages that help to characterize the magmatic and sedimentary history of the North American Cordillera between ~28 and 50 degrees north. The first dataset is a compilation of published zircon U-Pb ages of igneous rocks associated with the Mesozoic-Cenozoic North American Cordilleran arc. The compilation of igneous zircon data includes 1,492 U-Pb ages from the Peninsular Ranges, Sierra Nevada, Idaho, Boulder, and Coast Mountains batholiths, as well as spatially and temporally associated igneous bodies. The second dataset is a compilation of published detrital zircon U-Pb ages from Jurassic to Paleocene strata preserved in forearc and foreland basins of the North American Cordillera. The compilation of detrital zircon data includes 101,595 U-Pb ages from 827 detrital zircon samples.