In this paper, the fixed-time control for a class of second-order nonlinear systems with matched disturbance is addressed by using terminal sliding mode control technique. To improve the control performance of traditional fixed-time control method, a new fixed-time stability theorem is constructed by introducing a simple linear term, and theoretical analysis shows that the proposed control method provides faster convergence speed and more accurate estimate of the upper bound of settling time. Moreover, the practical fixed-time stability is also discussed in details. Based on the proposed fixed-time stability theorem, a fixed-time terminal sliding mode controller for a class of second-order nonlinear system is designed to obtain a bounded settling time independently of the initial conditions of the system. Simulations are carried out to verify the feasibility of the proposed control method.