As a child and young adult Battle was both a good student and a good singer. She was awarded a scholarship to the University of Cincinnati College–Conservatory of Music in Ohio, where she earned bachelor's and master's degrees in music education. While teaching, she continued to study voice privately; when Thomas Schippers (then conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra) heard her sing, he hired her to perform at the 1972 Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy.

Battle's debut at the festival in Johannes Brahms (Brahms, Johannes)'s Ein deutsches Requiem was very well received. Not long after, Schippers introduced Battle to the conductor James Levine (Levine, James), who was to become influential in her performing career, and by 1976 she was singing supporting roles in major American opera houses. In 1977 she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City as the Shepherd in Richard Wagner (Wagner, Richard)'s Tannhäuser. Critics immediately recognized that Battle's lyric soprano was exceptionally pure and consistent throughout her range. She dispatched the virtuosic coloratura of George Frideric Handel (Handel, George Frideric) and Henry Purcell (Purcell, Henry); excelled in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus)'s operas, playing such roles as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, and Despina in Così fan tutte; and was celebrated for her interpretation of African American spirituals. She recorded a wide variety of music and won five Grammy Awards between 1986 and 1993; in 1992 she won an individual Emmy Award for her performance in the televised 1991 Metropolitan Opera season opening gala.

In 1994 the Metropolitan Opera dismissed Battle for what it termed “unprofessional actions.” After that she rarely appeared on the opera stage, although she continued to make recordings and sing in concerts (live and televised) and on movie sound tracks, including Fantasia 2000 (1999) and House of Flying Daggers (2004).