Many companies featured on Money advertise with us. Opinions are our own, but compensation and
in-depth research may determine where and how companies appear. Learn more about how we make money.

Dhirubhai Ambani, an Indian business tycoon who died in 2002, offered this explanation for his wealth: "guts and luck." Economist Sam Wilkin, author of Wealth Secrets of the One Percent: A Modern Manual to Getting Marvelously, Obscenely Rich, says that tells you what you need to know about getting rich.

The strategies that are often pursued by the extremely rich are risky, and the super-rich are those who have had the luck to see their gamble pay off. "There are a lot of people who are left out who did not become super-rich," says Wilkin. "Those are probably the majority of people who attempted."