Combs was born in San Diego, Calif., and moved with her family to New York when she was 8 years old. Following her mother's footsteps as an aspiring actress, she began her career working in television commercials and print advertisements at age 10. She won her first movie role by 13, playing the daughter of Don Johnson and Susan Sarandon in the feature film Sweet Hearts Dance.

At 18, Combs got her big break starring for four seasons as the insightful daughter of parents played by Tom Skerritt and Kathy Baker in the critically acclaimed drama Picket Fences. In television movies, she has played an impressive range of starring roles, including the daughter of a murdered heiress in the fact-based Daughters, killer Diane Zamora in Love's Deadly Triangle: The Texas Cadet Murder and a rape victim in Sins of Silence. Most recently, Combs starred opposite Charisma Carpenter in the ABC Family Network comedy See Jane Date, in which she portrayed a smalltime actress who makes it big because of her affair with an A-list actor.

In feature films, Combs appeared in Steven Soderbergh's remake of Ocean's Eleven opposite George Clooney and Brad Pitt, in which she played herself along with The WB's stars Barry Watson and Joshua Jackson. She also played a young girl propositioned by a wheelchair-bound Tom Cruise in the 1989 Vietnam War saga Born on the Fourth of July. Additional big-screen credits include Chain of Desire with Malcolm McDowell and Linda Fiorentino and Simple Men.