International health funders, leaders and researchers frequently cite 'successes' in this field as validation for past labours and justification for future endeavours. However, the question of what constitutes success - from both historical and contemporary perspectives - has been inadequately analysed. This paper reviews and periodises understandings of success in international/global health during the past century and a half, mapping out shifts and continuities over time. It then turns to the implications of these changing conceptualizations for current and future global health ideologies, strategies and activities. It concludes by arguing that historians of global health and policymakers need to interact further so that historians are exposed to the contemporary problems of global health and policymakers better understand the historical complexity of extracting 'lessons' from the past.