Resilience--the ability to persist, bounce back, and achieve, despite setbacks or challenges--is an important predictive and protective factor for university students' personal and academic success. Qualitative research at one large U.S. land-grant university investigated faculty and student perceptions of how and why academic service-learning courses impact student resilience. We used thematic coding and analysis for responses from focus groups of faculty and students with recent service-learning experience. We found five key themes illustrating participants' perceptions of how service-learning enhances student resilience, including (a) opportunities for community members, peers, and instructors to serve as models of resilience; (b) more authentic and less hierarchical relationships among students and instructors; (c) natural opportunities for overcoming challenges inherent in community-based activities; (d) real-world consequences that increased student motivation to persevere; and (e) reflection activities that further helped students perceive and develop mastery and resilience. Suggestions for practice and future research are offered.