We present laboratory measurements of the generation and evolution of Langmuir circulations as an instability of a wind-driven surface shear layer. The shear layer, which is generated by an accelerating wind starting from rest above a quiescent water surface, both accelerates and deepens monotonically until the inception of the Langmuir circulations. The Langmuir circulations closely follow the initial growth of the wind waves and rapidly lead to vertical mixing of the horizontal momentum and a deceleration of the surface layer. Prior to the appearance of the Langmuir circulations, the depth of the shear layer scales with (vt)1/2 (v is the kinematic viscosity and t is time), in accordance with molecular rather than turbulent transport. For final wind speeds in the range 3 to 5 m s−1, the wavenumber of the most unstable Langmuir circulation normalized by the surface wavenumber, k*lc, is 0.68±0.24, at a reciprocal Langmuir number, La−1, of 52±21. The observations are compared with available theoretical results, although none are directly applicable to the conditions of the experiments. The implications of this work for the generation and evolution of Langmuir circulations in the ocean and other natural water bodies are discussed.