High-quality development is the cornerstone of building a modern socialist country. To advance high-quality development in Xinjiang, China, and accelerate its modernization, there is an urgent need for a scientific and rational evaluation index system to both reflect and guide progress. This study constructs a high-quality development evaluation index system for Xinjiang, incorporating primary indicators such as economic life, resource environment, innovation and opening up, regional integration and coordination, agricultural and cultural tourism industries, and eight major industrial clusters. Using the entropy method, the high-quality development index of Xinjiang is estimated. The coupling coordination degree model evaluates the degree of coordinated development of high-quality indicators in Xinjiang, while obstacle analysis identifies the factors constraining high-quality development. The findings reveal the following: (1) Xinjiang’s comprehensive high-quality development index increased from 0.172 in 2011 to 0.785 in 2022, reflecting a relatively favorable overall development level. The opening to the outside world, financial and insurance industries, economic development, and agricultural, cultural, and tourism industries have made increasingly significant contributions to high-quality development. However, challenges remain in the areas of science and technology input-output efficiency, human capital, the development gap with the national average, and low-carbon development. (2) The coupling coordination degree of Xinjiang’s high-quality development improved from 0.365 in 2011 to 0.883 in 2022, indicating strong inter-indicator correlation and a virtuous cycle. Between 2011 and 2014, the coupling and coordination degree of first-class indicators increased by 0.0715 per year, 0.0384 higher than the growth rate observed from 2015 to 2022, signaling a gradual slowdown. The degree of collaborative development between the two primary indicators, namely regional integration coordination and resource environment, is relatively low. (3) Analysis of indicators with obstacle values exceeding 0.05 over the years identifies forest coverage, natural gas production, added value of the financial industry, daily per capita domestic water consumption in cities, urban sewage treatment capacity, RMB deposits of financial institutions, registered urban unemployment rates, green coverage of built-up areas, rural electricity consumption, and reductions in chemical fertilizer use as key factors restricting Xinjiang’s high-quality development. To address these constraints, the study proposes optimizing the allocation of scientific and technological resources, enhancing the efficiency of technological investments, leveraging latecomer advantages, accelerating integration into national strategies, deepening supply-side structural reforms, and promoting industrial structural transformation.