This qualitative study investigates the link between student-teacher relationship and student's academic motivation. Two 16-year old male students from a public boarding school in the Peninsular of Malaysia were chosen as participants. Data were gathered from two unstructured interviews. Five themes within the student-teacher relationship were identified throughout the interviews: care, support, trust, approachable and expectation. The findings suggest that academic motivation is fostered when teachers show genuine care towards the students, provide continuous support to the students, build trust in the relationship, be approachable to the students, and have a reasonably high expectation towards students' achievement.