Experiments and direct numerical simulations (DNS) have been performed to examine the effects of initial conditions on the dynamics of a Rayleigh-Taylor unstable mixing layer. Experiments were performed on a water channel facility to measure the interfacial and velocity perturbations initially present at the two-fluid interface in a small Atwood number mixing layer. The experimental measurements have been parameterized for use in numerical simulations of the experiment. Two- and three-dimensional DNS of the experiment have been performed using the parameterized initial conditions. It is shown that simulations implemented with initial velocity and density perturbations, rather than density perturbations alone, are required to match experimentally-measured statistics and spectra. Data acquired from both the experiment and numerical simulations are used to examine the role of initial conditions on the evolution of integral-scale, turbulence, and mixing statistics. Early-time turbulence and mixing statistics are shown to be strongly-dependent upon the early-time transition of the initial perturbation from a weakly-nonlinear to a strongly-nonlinear flow.