This study reveals the roles of various student and school characteristics in defining the academically resilient Turkish and Italian students’ profiles based on TIMSS 2015 mathematics scores. The results of logistic regression analysis put forth that models for both countries were significant. The achievement of Turkish students was predicted by seven variables while the achievement of Italian students was predicted by two variables. Among all variables, ‘academic expectations’ and ‘confidence in math’ had the highest level of increase in the odds of being academically resilient. Results are comparatively discussed, and the study offers critical results for understanding resilience.