Top 9 Rags to Riches Billionaires

Li Ka–Shing
Born in 1928 in China, he fled from a turbulent China in 1940 to Hong Kong. His father died at the age of 15 .Now the financial responsibility of the family was on him and he had to leave school to work long hours at a plastics factory. He later borrowed money to manufacture plastic flowers. From these humble beginnings, his Cheung Kong Industries grew into a conglomerate with stakes in supermarkets, property and cell phones. Dubbed ''Superman,'' he has also been knighted by Queen Elizabeth. He has a net worth of $23 billion.

Sheldon Adelson
Born in 1933 in Massachusetts, his father was a taxi driver and his mother, an immigrant from U.K., ran a knitting store. He started selling newspapers at the age of 12 with some borrowed money. A college dropout, his early career included jobs as mortgage broker, investment adviser and financial consultant. He started a business selling toiletry kits and another business venture of his was charter tours. He made his first pile of money in trade shows. He later gambled on casinos in Las Vegas, Macau and Singapore. His Las Vegas Sands went public in December 2004. He has a net worth of $26.5 billion.

Warren Buffet
This is an exception to the rags to riches story in the sense that he was born to affluent parents. But despite that, he did not depend on his family fortune to build his own. He went door to door selling chewing gum, Coca-Cola, or weekly magazines. For a while, he worked in his grandfather's grocery store. Filing his first income tax return in 1944, Buffett took a $35 deduction for the use of his bicycle and watch on his paper route. At the age of ten, he was visiting the New York Stock Exchange. He is widely considered the most successful investor of the 20^th century and is among the wealthiest people in the world.