Exploring the factors that benefit academic persistence may facilitate adolescents' positive outcomes to increase the likelihood of future success, especially for adolescents with low family socioeconomic status (SES). Previous research has highlighted the merits of both motivational beliefs (e.g., self-efficacy and interests) and learning strategies within the self-regulated learning model. Recent evidence has shown that sociocultural-dependent motivators (e.g., social mobility beliefs) could also contribute to learning behaviours. Answers to how social mobility beliefs and coping strategies are associated with academic persistence among lower-SES adolescents should be provided. The cross-sectional data were obtained through adolescent and parental reports. The sample consisted of 738 sixth- to ninth-grade adolescents (M[subscript age] = 13.26 years, SD = 0.95) who were recruited from economically disadvantaged counties in China. Social mobility beliefs, academic coping strategies and academic persistence were reported by the adolescents. Information on family SES was collected through parental reports. This study revealed that (1) both social mobility beliefs and academic coping strategies were positively related to academic persistence, (2) social mobility beliefs were indirectly correlated with academic persistence through academic coping strategies, and (3) social mobility beliefs interacted with academic coping strategies to relate to academic persistence. These findings suggest that for adolescents who are exposed to greater economic risk, promoting both social mobility beliefs and academic coping strategies could be conducive for them to be perseverant in the face of academic challenges.