The 33-year-old world No. 1 started slowly and had her serve broken in the first game of the match, but after falling behind 0-2 she quickly turned the match around to win 11 of the next 14 games to grab a 6-4, 5-1 lead.
Williams seemed to be affected by nerves in trying to close out the match, dropping her serve twice as Muguruza got the second set back on serve.
But the contest then ended in anticlimactic fashion when the 21-year-old first-time finalist lost her serve at love in the final game.
"Don't be sad. You'll be holding this trophy very, very soon," Williams said in consoling her vanquished opponent just after the one-hour, 22-minute match.
The 20th-seeded Muguruza, whose ranking will climb into the top 10 for the first time after her maiden appearance in a Grand Slam final, was overcome by emotion in her on-court interview.
"I enjoyed a lot. I cannot talk," the Venezuelan-born Spanish player told the crowd before crediting Williams for showing once again why she is the world's best.
With her latest triumph, the American completed the so-called "Serena Slam" for the second time in her career (she previously pulled off that achievement in 2002-2003), meaning she currently is the title-holder at all four Grand Slam tournaments: the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
Serena also is now three-fourths of the way to a calendar-year Grand Slam, needing to win the U.S. Open later this summer to accomplish that feat.
Germany's Steffi Graf is the last player - man or woman - to win all of tennis' biggest events in the same calendar year, having secured the so-called Golden Slam (including winning the singles gold at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul) in 1988.
American Maureen Connolly (1953) and Australian Margaret Court (1970) also won all four Grand Slam events in the same calendar year.
Williams now has 21 Grand Slam singles titles, one short of Graf's Open Era record and three shy of Court's all-time mark. EFE
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