Yustman was born in Los Angeles, California. According to the actress, her mother, Lydia, is Cuban, and her father, Victor Yustman, who is of Italian and French descent, was born in Bogota, Colombia and raised in Nicaragua. Yustman is fluent in Spanish.

She debuted at an early age, playing a young student in Kindergarten Cop and later moved on to various television shows and movies such as South Beach and October Road. In 2007, she starred in the Lifetime original movie Reckless Behavior: Caught on Tape and followed it quickly with a lead role in J. J. Abrams' Cloverfield. On January 29, 2008, Variety announced that she would appear in Unborn, which is began filming in March, 2008.