Green cards for grads: the U.S. educates brilliant students from around the world, then sends them home to work for our competitors.

• Author: Frank, T.A.
• Position: SPECIAL REPORT ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP

I recently spent several days in Northern California and came down with a mild case of wealth poisoning. This often happens when I travel to places like San Francisco and Palo Alto. The greenness, tidiness, and modernity of the Bay Area start to chafe, like a Barbra Streisand interview, and I become homesick for the soothing grime of Los Angeles. The feeling is especially strong in Silicon Valley, which seems determined to show the world how rich you can get without having any fun.

But I'm not actually complaining. Thanks to innovation in places like Silicon Valley, the United States remains economically competitive in the world. It's the Bay Area that allows California to lead the nation in high-tech exports, pulling in nearly $50 billion annually. Last year, 39 percent of all venture capital in the United States found its way to Silicon Valley, an indication that the companies there are doing something right.

This would all be very comforting, were the prosperity of America's technology hubs not so fragile. Unlike heavy industry, which relies on factories that are expensive to launch and hard to move, the knowledge industry is mobile. It's also relatively simple to capitalize, because, fundamentally, information technology is all about the brains. Whoever gets the best ones wins.

For years, the United States effortlessly excelled at this game. The governments of China and India made conditions too disagreeable for innovators, while Europe and Australia effectively coasted. But our run of lazy luck is long gone. Today, China, India, the European Union, Australia, and other competitors are all vying to attract the most promising talents to their shores. China and India have greatly improved conditions for would-be entrepreneurs, and the EU is considering a skills-based "blue card" to compete with the green card offered here.

Now, we are starting to see our rivals pull ahead of us. In 2007, high-tech exports from the United States to other countries totaled $214 billion, but imports amounted to $333 billion. If we must do the math (and in this case we must, even if India offers to help), then we arrive at an ugly result: a high-tech trade deficit of nearly $119 billion. When the world's leader in innovation can't break even, it's a dubious leader.

One way to regain our dominance in the tech sector would be to get more of the brightest people in the world to move here. According to a recent report issued by Duke University and the University...