Even in this era of business prodigies, his youthful success is virtually unrivaled. Michael Dell recently turned 36 years old, and already he's considered a sage on matters of business and technology. Dell Computer, which he founded at age 19, was the best-performing American stock of the 1990s. Long the front-runner in U.S. personal computing sales, the company took the global lead from Compaq in the first quarter of 2001-and with $32 billion in revenues last year, it's bigger than Microsoft.

So how do you build the world's largest PC company? Dell points to such old-fashioned strategies as giving people what they want and for a lower price; for that reason, he admires the work of Henry Ford and Wal-Mart's Sam Walton. But he also revolutionized the selling of personal computers, using a direct-business model whose fundamental tenets include taking custom orders directly from customers, thereby reducing inventory and streamlining distribution. That model rocked the world of competitors like IBM, Compaq Computer and Apple Computer and changed forever the economics of the business.