This paper is concerned with the tracking control problem for a class of high-order nonlinear systems. Different from the related studies, the considered systems allow the existence of input dead-zone, external disturbances and polynomial growing conditions with time-varying delays. A new Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional is skillfully constructed and a robust output feedback tracking controller is designed by using a modified homogeneous domination method. It is guaranteed that all signals of the closed-loop system are bounded and the tracking error can converge to a compact domain which can be tuned sufficiently small. A simulation example is provided to show the validity of our control strategy.