As the demand for qualified nurses increases, nursing education is responsible for preparing students for healthcare challenges. Nursing education focuses on academic success measures, including licensure examination passage, graduation rates, and grade point average. Though these outcomes are important, they fail to capture the complexities of student success. Thriving, the conceptual framework for this study, is a phenomenon within higher education that expands on the traditional measures of success and integrates cognitive and psychological aspects of the college experience. This study utilized interpretive phenomenology to understand the meanings of the lived experiences of thriving undergraduate nursing students. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight participants who were deemed as thriving, according to the Thriving Quotient. These participants were undergraduate students from two baccalaureate nursing programs. Five themes emerged from the data analysis: professors’ investment in students, partnerships with peers, seeing success through hardships, greater purpose, and finding a balance. The study’s findings add to the unique understanding of thriving among nursing students. Furthermore, the results support the call for an expansive view of success to prepare students for the nursing profession