Entrepreneur finds keyboard to success.

• Position: Chris Evans

Chris Evans drives a Saturn, never finished college and describes himself as a recovering computer nerd. He's an unlikely millionaire, but these days he's a venture capitalist's dream. At 32, he has started and sold three companies - for a total of $62 million in cash and stock.

In March, he hawked Raleigh-based Accipiter Inc., which makes software that tracks Web-site visitors, to Andover, Mass.-based CMG Information Services Inc. in the largest-ever deal for a private Tar Heel software company. He started it in 1996 with $4 million and sold it for $55 million. He owned a 20% stake.

Accipiter's revenues were only $1 million last year, so how did he get such a price for it? Evans credits the high-profile client list, which includes Microsoft Corp.'s MSNBC, ZDNet and WebTV, which all have heavy-traffic Web sites. Accipiter and its 60 employees will be a division of CMG's Engage Technologies Inc., and Evans will stay on as CEO.

The Buffalo, N.Y., native co-founded his first business, DaVinci Systems Corp., in 1985 with classmate Bill Nussey while studying electrical engineering at N.C. State. They developed software for a then-obscure concept - e-mail. Their network eventually had 2 million users. Evans quit school his senior year when he started missing exams for business...