From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmake goodmake good (also make it good) to become successful and rich after being poor – used especially in newspapers a country boy who made good in New York → good
Examples from the Corpus
make good• Hsieh came to America as a poor teenager, but worked hard and made good.• Ian thinks that just because he made good, everybody else can too.• He's just a poor country boy who made good in the city.• However, although he might look a bit lost, he makes good in Year 2.• The next afternoon, Sunday, Jody makes good on her promise.• I needed to make better pitches with runners on base...• Dawn made good progress, and was soon able to stand up.• It therefore makes good sense for us to control for date of birth when looking at the effects of terminal education age.• I started making good swings, and I became entranced by what I was doing.• More separate provision is being provided and many authorities make good use of the facilities made available by voluntary organizations. 