Born into poverty, Oprah Winfrey became the first African American TV correspondent in Nashville.

Net worth: $2.9 billion (as of Sept. 2013)

Winfrey was born into a poor family in Mississippi, but this didn't stop her from winning a scholarship to Tennessee State University and becoming the first African American TV correspondent in the state at the age of 19.

In 1983, Winfrey moved to Chicago to work for an AM talk show which would later be called "The Oprah Winfrey Show."