Originally from Honduras, Central America, Carlos grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, and has spent many years on the Northwest coast of Florida and Southwest Georgia. Carlos graduated with honors from Jesuit High School in New Orleans and received a B.A. in Spanish with a Minor in French in 1978 and also received a B.A. in Composition with a Minor in Guitar Performance in 1984 both from the University of New Orleans. While an undergraduate he gained theater experience while leading an onstage Renaissance Trio in a University of New Orleans production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and playing incidental music for their production of Bertold Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan.

He was a Guitar and Bass instructor at Gulf Coast Community College in Panama City, Florida and guitarist for the Gulf Coast Jazz Ensemble from 1987-1989.

While doing coursework towards a Master's Degree at Florida State University he was the recipient of an Assistantship Scholarship under the Direction of Dr. Robert Smith and through the Center for Music of the Americas. His duties included teaching classes in Blues and Latin Music performance styles. He earned his MM in Composition at Florida State University in 1999.

Many of his compositions have been performed in recitals at FSU and UNO and chosen for Doctoral recitals by performance majors. He has many compositions in all genres of music: academic, twentieth-century abstract, music for various solo instruments: classical guitar and piano, duos for clarinet and guitar, clarinet and piano, flute and trombone and music for many types of ensembles including traditional jazz, and traditional Latin ensembles, as well as popular music ensembles: rock 'n roll, r 'n' b, and blues.

He taught and performed at Okaloosa-Walton Community College in Fort Walton Beach, Florida for four years from 1998-2002 where he taught Guitar, Bass, Composition, Improvisation, and Jazz Theory and Arranging. While at OWCC he lead the rhythm section as guitarist with the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra for a concert featuring Jazz Flutist, Herbie Mann. He has also been a featured classical guitar concerto artist performing Carulli's Guitar Concerto in A with NFSO in an OWCC Faculty concert and performed as guitarist with the pit orchestra in the OWCC productions of West Side Story and 
A Chorus Line.

On March 15, 2003, Classical Guitarist Maestro Carlos Barbosa-Lima gave the New York City Premiere of the First Movement of his Second Guitar Sonata at Carnegie Hall.

Carlos is a founding member of the Southern Arts Music Ensemble, a Jazz/Latin Fusion Sextet in Albany, Georgia and has recently performed for an Honors Convocation in Atlanta, Georgia for Mr. Ted Turner. He has, as guest performer with The Albany State University Jazz Ensemble, performed several concerts including two consecutive years at The Fletcher Henderson Jr. Jazz Festival at his birthplace in Cuthbert, Georgia, the 30th Annual Jazz Festival at Macon, Georgia. and a Solo Concert for The Easter Seal Society on the Town Square in Vienna, Georgia. Carlos played the Banjo in the Albany State University and Albany Symphony's co-production of George Gershwin's Opera Porgy and Bess and joined the Albany Symphony as guitarist in a performance with legendary entertainer, Ms. Debbie Reynolds.

In 2003, his composition, Si Tu Te Vas (If You Go Away) performed with the Southern Arts Music Ensemble was chosen to be part of the Everglades Trail project. This project was sponsored by Florida Senator Bob Graham to increase public awareness of the beauty and fragility of the Florida Everglades. Part of this project has included the release of a multimedia CD narrated by Charles Osgood containing songs by many Florida artists, including two songs by Jimmy Buffett.