We evaluate the frame-independent gluon and charm parton-distribution functions (PDFs) of the deuteron utilizing light-front quantization and the impulse approximation. We use a nuclear wave function obtained from solving the nonrelativistic Schrödinger equation with the realistic Argonne v18 nuclear force, which we fold with the proton PDF. The predicted gluon distribution in the deuteron (per nucleon) is a few percent smaller than that of the proton in the domain $x_{bj}="Q22pN\cdot q\sim 0.4$, whereas it is strongly enhanced for $x_{bj}$ larger than 0.6. We discuss the applicability of our analysis and comment on how to extend it to the kinematic limit $x_{bj}\to 2$. We also analyze the charm distribution of the deuteron within the same approach by considering both the perturbatively and non-perturbatively generated (intrinsic) charm contributions. In particular, we note that the intrinsic-charm content in the deuteron will be enhanced due to 6-quark “hidden-color” QCD configurations.