The purpose of this study was to examine how teacher-student relationship can promote academic performance in secondary school. This study was guided by three specific objectives these were to examine the factors that promotes good teacher-student relationship on academic performance in Nyamagana District, to examine the role of teacher- student relationship on academic performance in Nyamagana District and to identify challenges facing teacher-students’ relationship in promoting academic performance in Nyamagana District. Questionnaires and interview guide were the tools used to collect the data. The research involved mixed research approach in which a descriptive survey design was employed. From 1592 targeted population, 162 respondents were sampled through stratified sampling, simple random sampling and purposive sampling. Data were gathered by interview and questionnaire, the quantitative data collected were analyzed by statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 20 software for windows and the data were presented in tables while qualitative data were analyzed thematically. It was found that caring students and storytelling to students are the main factors of building positive teacher-student relationship in classrooms. The findings from this study also showed that advising students encouraging students, cooperation with students and respect as the roles teachers plays in promoting academic performance. However poor participation of teachers, shortage of teaching and learning material, lack of cooperation and fear of students to their teachers were found to be the challenges hindering teacher-student relationship