How to improve tillage practices and nitrogen management for enhancing nitrogen absorption and redistribution, thereby increasing crop yields and resource utilization efficiency remains a current challenge in agriculture. However, these effects exhibit marked heterogeneity across agroecological regions and warrant further scrutiny, particularly in dryland farming systems. To address this issue, a two-factor split-plot field experiment, including two tillage practices in the main plots (i.e., rotary tillage and plow tillage, represented by RT and PT, respectively) and three nitrogen fertilizer gradients in the subplots (i.e., 180, 240, and 300 kg N ha-1, represented by N1, N2, and N3, respectively) was carried out over three consecutive winter wheat seasons in the dryland wheatmaize intercropping agricultural area of Northwest China. Results demonstrated that RT effectively enhanced the sustained supply capacity of soil moisture and nutrients, increased dry matter accumulation and promoted plant photosynthetic performance of the winter wheat plants. When integrated with the N2 treatment, this practice further elevates grain yield and substantially enhances resource-use efficiency. Over the 3-year growing seasons, compared with the PT-N2, the RT-N2 treatment significantly increased winter wheat yield, net income, and water-use efficiency by 13.12-15.02 %, 45.12-58.02 %, and 10.72-19.97 %, respectively. In addition, the RT-N2 treatment optimised pre-anthesis nitrogen accumulation and post-anthesis nitrogen uptake in the aboveground tissues of winter wheat, thereby increasing nitrogen uptake efficiency, nitrogen agronomic efficiency, nitrogen recovery efficiency, and nitrogen partial factor productivity by averages of 20.53 %, 37.3 %, 59.07 %, and 11.63 %, respectively. Meanwhile, the RT-N2 also reduced nitrate nitrogen leaching within the 0-200 cm soil profile after winter wheat harvest by an average of 17.89 % compared with the PT-N2 treatment. The partial least squares path model revealed that soil moisture and nutrient availability are the primary drivers of winter wheat productivity, whereas nitrate-N leaching from the 60-140 cm soil layer emerges as the dominant limiting factor. Overall, the management strategy integrating RT with N2 delivers synergistic gains in winter wheat productivity while simultaneously advancing environmental sustainability. This finding provides a robust basis for optimising tillage and nitrogen management in wheat-maize double-cropping systems, thereby facilitating the concurrent realisation of high yields and ecological stability.