Entrepreneur Magazine's Hot 500 Who made the cut as this year's fastest-growing small businesses?

View all of the Hot 500 companies for 2007.

America was built on aspirations. Ever since the country was founded, the desire for a better life has propelled people to our shores. The same yearning to reach ever higher inspires today's entrepreneurs--and there's no better example of the power of aspirations than the success stories from our Hot 500 list.

For the past 15 years or so, politicians and economists have touted entrepreneurship as the engine driving our economy. While this was once news, today it's not--at least, not to us at Entrepreneur. We've long known that entrepreneurial companies are the primary generators of new job creation. To be included in our listing, companies had to show positive job growth.