This paper addresses the debate over the significance of family’s monetary versus non-monetary resources for children’s achievement and development, within the context ofcontemporary China. We use data from the 2010 baseline survey of the China Family PanelStudy to examine the relevance of several proposed determinants in Chinese children’s cog-nitive achievement. Our findings suggest that: (1) family income is significantly associatedwith children’s achievement, but family’s assets and direct measures of monetary resourcesare found to have little effect; (2) non-monetary resources, particularly parenting, are ofgreat importance to children’s achievement; (3) parenting practices do not vary greatly byfamily’s economic resources.