I'd say through sheer force of will.  It takes allot of persistence and a little bit of luck.  Plus you have to have the mentality for it because you can't tell a computer "You know what i mean"....well...not just yet at least. 

   It also takes allot more than learning a language or two.  You really do have to be well rounded so that when you sit down to solve a problem you can build allegories based on your own knowledge (From both the programming world ,and the world outside software Dev) to come to an efficient solution.

   One of the biggest steps in my opinion would be to humble yourself and spend a couple of years just taking in other developers ideas.  Attending user groups and tech conferences will give you a great edge in this area.  Sit and talk to people who have been developers for decades and you'll find yourself taking on a wealth of knowledge.  Then, slowly at first, start to put theory into practice, start hammering it out a piece at a time until you have a small concept down pat, then move on to another one and do the same.

   Before you know it, you'll be one of the best developers around and you'll have people looking to you for advice and knowledge.

   I'm sure i've missed a few things here, but thats whats great about asking a question of the community, right?

Dave

Personally, after 5 years of learning PASCAL in college, hated writing code.  So I became a network admin.  It wasn't until I started automating my daily checks and processes that I taught myself VB5.  I taught myself .NET when it was in 1.0 beta, and C# a little while after that, but I was still a network admin. Until the day I was told by my boss that I was at the top of what they could pay me to be a network admin, and if I wanted to develop code they could bump my pay up.  And that's when it happened, as a network admin my code was fine, but as a developer, my coding had a lot to be desired.  I started listening to podcasts, watching webcasts, going to user group meetings, reading books and magazines, and blogs, wow there sure was alot to catch up on. From there I had a thirst for knowledge that I just can't quench.  And I too, along with other posters believe that that thirst is what makes a good developer.  If I had to do it again I would have taken my coding a lot more seriously while I was a network admin.