"When I was 5 years old, my father said I was a star," says Elana Turner-James, "and I believed him!" It was a good foundation for her independent spirit. Today, at 36, she's the youngest woman to own two McDonald's restaurants in the Washington, D.C., area.

But her beginnings were humble. She and her family of five lived in the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago. She started working at a McDonald's as a teenager and discovered that she loved the company. She eventually managed three other franchises before opening her first restaurant, in Crystal City, Virginia, in June 1998.

To meet the purchase price of $492,000, Turner-James needed a down payment of 25 percent and a $45,000 franchising fee. Some of the money came from bonuses she had earned through McDonald's profit-sharing plan. "I was a bonusin' sista!" she says with a laugh. The rest came from GE Capital, and another bank loan of about $105,000 covered uniforms, inventory and staff training.

She bought her second restaurant, near the Pentagon, for $575,000 and opened it in January 2000.

"I haven't done anything you can't do," Turner-James tells her 87 employees. She also points out that success can be fleeting. "Without a plan in place, it can dwindle away." She may drive a Lexus 470, but she still lives in the house she bought years ago for $195,000. And she strives for balance in her life. She's never too busy for her 9-year-old son, Evan. "He's what keeps me going," she says.

She has been generous to relatives; she has paid for tuition and schoolbooks, for example. But she does have to draw the line occasionally. At one point, she called a family meeting to discuss repeated requests for assistance, but before they gathered, she asked God to dictate the words she would use. "It was hard," she explains, "but I said, `I have it, but I'm not giving it away. This is what I'm willing to do ...'"

Turner-James motivates her employees with that same spirit of love and support. Perhaps that's why, in a business known for high turnover, she still has 65 percent of the people who were with her when she first opened her restaurants.

Success Secrets: Carol H. Williams

When Carol H. Williams, president of an advertising agency that bears her name, was growing up in Chicago, she and her two sisters slept on a "let out" couch in the living room, a brother slept on a futon and another brother slept with her parents until he was 6. "My father once told me I made more in a week than he did in a whole year," says Williams, who is in her fifties.

Williams began her advertising career as a copywriter at the Leo Burnett agency in Chicago, and in fewer than seven years became a vice-president. She later worked as a senior vice-president at Foote, Cone & Belding in San Francisco.

Early on, Williams learned the benefits of having mentors. In addition to her family, she sought advice from people in the White, male-dominated advertising industry who recognized her talent and intelligence--men like Charlie Blakemore, the creative director she was working for when she created the campaign for Secret deodorant ("Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman") that guaranteed her a place in the big league.

After marrying Tipkins Hood, an orthopedic surgeon, Williams quit her job to devote more time to her family. (She and her husband have a daughter.) She was lured back into advertising in the mid-1980's because so many of her former clients kept asking her to work on various projects. But this time she went out on her own, starting with $40,000 in savings and working from her home.

As the ad campaigns grew larger and her client list grew longer, Williams knew she was on her way. When she rented her first office space, there was room for just four or five people. Now Carol H. Williams Advertising, based in the World Savings Building in Oakland, is a $132 million-a-year business with 70 employees. Her clients include Allstate, Procter & Gamble and Luster Products.

But she still faces roadblocks at times. "Unfortunately, not everyone sings your praises, and some will decide you don't deserve to be in business," Williams says. But she has learned to handle the challenges. "When the door opens, you've got to move through it!" she says. "Bust it down if necessary!"

A Philosophy of Wealth: Janice Bryant Howroyd

Janice Bryant Howroyd's $1,500 investment has yielded amazing returns. With $967 in savings and $533 in loans from her mother and brother, she founded Act 1 Personnel Services in Beverly Hills, California, in 1978. It has grown into a diversified company, the Act 1 Group in Torrance, California, with 75 offices nationwide and projected revenues of $260 million in 2002.

Howroyd, who is from Tarboro, North Carolina, says her personnel business made money from day one. "It doesn't take a genius to do the arithmetic," she says, "but it takes a gift to make it multiply." She shares the credit with some of her siblings (she's one of 11 children), who brought different yet valuable skills to the business.

Before going into business for herself, Howroyd, who's in her late forties, worked for the American Red Cross, helping families in emergencies; the National Academy of Sciences, where she researched and edited reports; and a company that created training programs for Fortune 500 companies.

Part of her motivation for starting an employment agency was a desire to bolster self-esteem among African-Americans by helping them find jobs. Her marketing strategy in those early days was low-tech: She distributed flyers and made countless telephone calls to drum up business.

She says racism is still a factor in the employment industry. "It's hard to manage through it," she adds. "You just learn to manage around and beyond it."

But that's not her only message. "I know people who truly made knuckle-bleeding sacrifices," she says. Coming from a town filled with folks who knew the roots of pain and sacrifice has always reminded her to stay humble.