Empire builders like Bill Gates and Sam Walton aren't just great businessmen. They are bona fide revolutionaries.

Self-made billionaires don't dominate industries--they transform them and spawn new ones. That takes more than intelligence, courage and luck. It takes divine-like vision.

Billionaire entrepreneurs are "not working within the confines of the current market," says Gerald Kraines, chief executive of the Levinson Institute, a business consulting firm in Jaffey, N.H. "They're anticipating things much further afield. You have to see spaces that no one else sees."

The world's self-made billionaires certainly have vision in spades, spanning everything from how computers work to how people shop. But the ability to see around corners isn't the only quality that separates the very accomplished from the stratospherically wealthy. To crack the $1 billion barrier, you need total, unwavering belief in your vision--and an immutable will to pull it off.

"[Billionaire entrepreneurs] need a deep passion and a point of view about the future," says Peter Skarzynski, chief executive of Strategos, a Chicago-based consulting firm that advises global companies, including Nokia and Whirlpool. "They fundamentally believe that they have a better way to solve a set of