Lessons of world's self-made billionaires

April's been busy for George Soros. The billionaire traveled the world to plug his 10th book. He made headlines calling for tighter regulation of hedge funds. He's also reportedly looking into buying a top Italian soccer club.

To top it off, the 77-year-old still banks billions. Last year, Soros saw opportunity in choppy financial markets and returned to his financial company Soros Fund Management. Forbes estimates his 2007 earnings were $2.4 billion, the second most on Wall Street. We calculate the total net worth of this hedge fund pioneer at $9 billion.

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World's self-made billionaires
World's billionaires 

It's an impressive list of accomplishments for anybody, even more remarkable because of Soros' origins. At 16 he fled his native Hungary as the Soviet Union took control. His Jewish family lost almost everything during World War II, so Soros put himself through the London School of Economics working low-paying jobs: a railway porter, a swimming pool attendant, a waiter.

Dramatic? Yes. But Soros' rags-to-riches rise is hardly rare among the world's richest people. Two-thirds of the 1,125 billionaires on Forbes' 2008 list are self-made, many from backgrounds as modest as Soros'.

Take Kirk Kerkorian, one of the elder statesmen of our list at 90 years old. When he was 4 years old, banks foreclosed on his family's farm. They moved to Los Angeles, and his father sold watermelons. After the eighth grade, Kirk dropped out of school to augment the family's meager income.

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He worked odd jobs to make ends meet, including a boxing career as "Rifle Right Kerkorian." But it was his experience as a fighter pilot trainer during World War II that helped him start a charter flight company, which he sold for a $104 million profit in 1966.

Further successes with Las Vegas casinos and hotels made Kerkorian the 41st- richest person in the world. When Forbes published its latest list of the world's billionaires in March, the son of the watermelon seller had a net worth of $16 billion.

Orphaned at age 4, Roman Abramovich is now the 15th-richest person in the world with a net worth of $23.5 billion. The Russian's first successes came with controversial oil trades following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He followed those with an even more lucrative deal when he bought the oil giant Sibneft at a fraction of its market value. He's since diversified into steel, mining and soccer. Abramovich owns the English soccer powerhouse Chelsea.

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Li Ka-shing, worth $26.5 billion, started working in a factory when he was just 15 because of the untimely death of his father. He was able to quit after he started making and selling plastic flowers. The venture grew into Cheung Kong Industries. Through Cheung Kong and another conglomerate, Hutchison Whampoa, Li is the world's largest operator of container terminals and the world's largest health and beauty retailer. The one-time factory worker is now nicknamed Superman, knighted by Queen Elizabeth and the 11th-wealthiest person in the world.

It's hard to believe that media mogul Oprah Winfrey was born impoverished in rural Mississippi. When her parents split, she shuttled between various households, at one point living on a pig farm.

Despite the fractured family, Winfrey excelled in school. She set her sights on a career in media and never looked back. She started working as a radio DJ while still in high school. At 19, she began anchoring a local Nashville news show.

In 1984, she moved to Chicago to host a morning talk show. Her ability to empathize with guests and her accessible demeanor made her a hit. Now her work airs in 135 countries and draws 46 million viewers a week in the US alone.

Thanks to its success and other media ventures, including a magazine, Forbes estimates Winfrey's net worth at $2.5 billion. Not bad for a farm girl from Mississippi.