BET pays off for former Tar Heel.

• Position: Debra Lee, president of BET Holdings Inc.

As a black teen-ager in Greensboro in the 1960s, Debra Lee didn't have to look far for inspiration. She watched black lawyers and bankers thrive and become respected community leaders. "Even though it was very segregated when I was growing up, black professionals did really well," she says. "We never felt we were second-class citizens."

Now eyes are on her. Lee, 43, was promoted to president and chief operating officer of Washington, D.C.-based BET Holdings Inc. in March. Founder Bob Johnson still holds the CEO title, but he's passed effective control to her. The company owns cable-TV networks - including the flagship Black Entertainment Television - magazines and theme restaurants. In August, Black Enterprise magazine named Lee one of the 20 most-powerful black women executives.

Her first love was politics. She left Greensboro for Brown University and a degree in Asian politics. Next came Harvard University, where she picked up graduate degrees in law and public policy. In 1980, she moved to the nation's capital to become a policy wonk. But her dream ran counter to the Reagan Revolution, so Lee - a self-described liberal - went to work at Steptoe & Johnson, a D.C. law firm that represented BET. In 1986, after five years at the firm, she joined BET as vice president and general counsel.

When Lee arrived, BET was a small 5-year-old cable company employing 80. It's grown to 500 employees, with $133 million in revenues in 1996. BET went public in 1991, at $17 a share, becoming the first majority-black-owned company to trade on the New York Stock Exchange. In late August, the stock was at about $40.

Shortly after joining, Lee managed construction of the company's first...