She's the perky TV anchor who helps start your day at 6:00 a.m. on CNN's American Morning. Soledad O'Brien, a tireless mother of four, reports some of the nation's most pressing news for four hours every day, and handles it all by simply staying "laid back."

Born on Long Island to an Australian-Irish father and an Afro-Cuban mother, the multicultural powerhouse built her career by following her work, whether it took her to San Francisco, Boston or back to New York. "The challenges really have changed with every single job. It's a very subjective business. People don't want to see women, young women, reporting on certain markets. I'm sure there were people thinking that people of color should be reporting on stories about people of color, which are rarely A-block stories. But those things change."

This Harvard-educated journalist has been sent around the U.S. and the globe to cover major world events including Hurricane Katrina, the London terrorist attacks, and the Southeast Asian tsunami. She anchored the live coverage of Yasser Arafat's burial and, in 2003, was the only broadcast journalist permitted to travel with first lady Laura Bush to Moscow. Getting the big stories and big breaks has been a matter of being in the right place at the right time. "When I finally got an opportunity, I made sure I did a good job. How do you learn to do the big stories out of Washington, D.C. if you never get the opportunity? It's not just a TV news issue--you get the opportunity because someone called in sick or there's not one other English-speaking person in the building. You have to be prepared."

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Michael Bloomberg, NYC Mayor/8th Richest Person in America

The man had big shoes to fill--and all he had to wear were Armani. Sure, he may look like a million bucks, but Michael R. Bloomberg is actually worth $5 billion. When he speaks, one could picture Woody Allen delivering the lines, but this man is no nebbish. He's a straight shooter with nothing to lose and a wealth of business know-how that's reshaping a post- 9/11 New York into the financial behemoth it's known to be.

In 2002, a 60-year-old Michael Bloomberg stepped into an eight-year old shadow. Since the 9/11 attacks on New York City, mayor Rudolph Giuliani had become a city celebrity, Time magazine's Person of the Year and a national hero. The two-term leader of the city had to resign because of mayoral term limits. Despite the hopes of many New Yorkers and many Americans that a new reform could keep Rudy in office just a while longer to proffer his compassion and knowledge on the stricken city, Giuliani had to retire only a mere three months after the attacks. The campaign continued on.

Then a political neophyte and billionaire businessman emerged as the Republican candidate against the Democratic front man Mark Green. With a completely self-financed campaign, Michael Rubens Bloomberg shelled out anywhere from $50 to $100 million of his own dollars (depending on who you're listening to) in order to win the seat. Stepping into the limelight, quite literally under the famous New Year's Eve ball in Times Square on January 1, 2002, an earnest Rudolph Giuliani inaugurated Bloomberg and sent him to City Hall with a sober warning: "Don't fail our people." Bloomberg quickly became the national focus, with many wary eyes on his tailored suit.

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 Lin Manuel-Miranda, Tony Award Winner/Rapper

"In the Heights" has enlivened Broadway's 2008 season and made history as the first production by a Latino to win the Tony Award for Best Musical. When "West Side Story" hit Broadway in 1957, the role of Maria, the Puerto Rican protagonist, was played by Anglo actress Carol Lawrence. The film version shortly followed, and again the Caribbean-born heroine was played by a non-Latina, this time by Hollywood darling Natalie Wood. So the armfuls of Tony Awards for In the Heights, an exuberant musical about a Hispanic immigrant community, show exactly how far the country has come in the past 50 years.

"In the Heights", by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegria Hudes, follows three days in the characters' lives in the Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights. Marked by the George Washington Bridge to the west, the enclave was settled by Irish immigrants in the early 1900s, then by European Jews escaping persecution in the '30s and '40s. In the decades following, Greek immigrants flooded in alongside Puerto Ricans and Cubans. But in the past three decades, Dominicans have been the dominant ethnic group, making Washington Heights unique and one of the most lively neighborhoods in New York City.

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Sara Ramirez/"Grey's Anatomy" Star

Sara Ramirez is about to supernova. For the voluptuous "mexamericana" with a palpable stage presence and booming voice, being Latina has only helped her star on its meteoric rise.

The 29-year-old actress is currently starring in Monty Python's Spamalot, a Broadway show directed by six-time Tony Award-winner mike Nichols. Partly based on Arthurian legend and--as the show's creators note--"lovingly ripped off" from the absurd British film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, this flashy farce is raking in box office bucks in a frenzy not seen since the early days of The Producers. (Spamalot brought in $2 million in ticket sales on a single day, and audiences have to reserve seats more than six months in advance.)

Sharing the boards as the only female lead aside popular performers like Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Clue), Hank Azaria (The Simpsons) and David Hyde Pierce (Frasier), Ramirez not only holds her own; some might argue that she leads the pack.

As The Lady of the Lake--often portrayed in art history as an ethereal, blonde waif--Ramirez breaks the mold with her natural curves and big, brown eyes. "Being Latina has worked in my favor more often than not. I've never had to change my name. More and more, on Broadway, people are thinking outside of the box. Unless you're Denzel Washington in Julius Caesar, though, it can still be very difficult." The singular performer was born and raised in Mazatlan, Mexico until age eight, when she and her mother moved to San Diego. She was brought up bilingually by her Spanish-speaking father and Anglophone mom, and attended the San Diego School for Creative and Performing Arts for high school. She was accepted into the prestigious Juilliard School's drama program and moved to New York City in 1993.