In addition to incandescent lamps, white light-emitting diode and nonlinear supercontinuum white light, recent studies focus on the production of continuum broadband white light by irradiating different active materials with near-infrared constant-wave lasers. In this review, we introduced and categorized different materials that exhibit NIR laser driven white light emission, i.e., inorganic phosphors, hybrid nanostructures, carbon-based materials, organometallic compounds and rare-earth complexes. The intrinsic photophysical behavior of this process in terms of spectral characteristics, temperature evolution and photoelectric response was discussed. In addition, the different mechanisms of while light generation and highlight potential applications of this process were also represented. Finally, the past results and point future research direction for this optical process were summaried.