"In America, every one finds facilities unknown elsewhere for making or increasing his fortune. The spirit of gain is always on the stretch." So wrote Alexis de Tocqueville more than a century ago. Today, Americans are making fortunes as fast and ingeniously as ever. In this week's cover story on the Hot New Rich, we examine how a dozen new millionaires assembled all of these megabucks--and what they are doing with them.

Although we included a few celebrities like Steve Cauthen and Peter Frampton, we asked correspondents in six TIME bureaus to seek out local, unpublicized Americans who have quietly and quickly amassed great wealth. They learned that if superaffluence is not widespread or evenly distributed (a matter examined in our Essay), it is at least spreading. Thanks to inflation, a million is not what it used to be, but there are more millionaires. Out of a wealth of candidates, we selected the subjects we thought the most intriguing.

Senior Writer Michael Demarest, who wrote the story, could--like most of us--use a million dollars. But he is no stranger to the world of wealth. His family tree included two millionaires, and Demarest grew up in England, attending private schools with "the peerage and the beerage." Demarest notes a difference between European and American rich: "Many Americans don't know how to spend their money. Perhaps it is in part a result of the Puritan work ethic."

As a journalist, Demarest has savored vicariously the indulgences of the moneyed, covering such gathering places of the wealthy as Manhattan's Palace Restaurant, where he attended a $500-per-head prix fixe dinner; the Duke of Bedford's bashes; and sundry Sotheby sales, where the rich auction off their baubles. One millionaire Demarest met lived on the ocean liner Ile de France--crossing and recrossing the Atlantic. Demarest speculates that the eccentric bon vivant, keeping up with the times, now lives aboard a Concorde. "Of the newly rich people I have known, few seemed really fulfilled," says Demarest. "Others compete for what they have and are, but the rich have already won. Those of us who are distinctly unrich can console ourselves with Ruskin's words: 'There is no wealth but life.' "

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