(FORTUNE Magazine) – IMAGINE THIS as your problem: Through good luck, hard work, or a combination thereof, you suddenly find yourself with an extra $100,000 on your hands. But you are stumped on how to make this booty blossom in an era of low interest rates. To your rescue come four champions from this year's list of America's best mutual funds. They tell how they would invest such a windfall.

RODNEY LINAFELTER Portfolio manager Berger 100 and Berger 101 funds -- As an undergraduate at the University of South Dakota, Linafelter made a $2,000 profit in two weeks by shorting Eastman Kodak, which was battered when the notorious Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market. That money got him a used Chevy Blazer and a passion for investing. As Linafelter, 34, puts it, ''When you have a good experience the first time, you want to do it over and over again.'' Which is exactly what he's been doing ever since. In 1990, he took over day-to-day management of the Berger 100 and Berger 101 funds and drove them to the winner's circle of our mutual fund rankings.

I'd put the whole $100,000 into equities and divide it among three main groups of shares: technology, long-term health care, and what I'm calling growth cyclicals. The long-term fundamentals for equity investors are really super. Inflation is low and so are rates of return on competing investments, like bonds. Also, people are much more savings-conscious today and are using mutual funds as their vehicle of choice. That constant influx of cash will support stock prices. Sure, the markets will go through corrections. But if you pick the right ones, stocks will act like tennis balls and not eggs at the other side. Technology is still my favorite sector, and that's where I'd put 40% of the $100,000. The whole trend toward client-server computing is interesting - because it eliminates the need for expensive mainframe computers. That means it's about time for the application software companies to really do well. One I like very much is PeopleSoft. It makes programs companies use to manage their personnel -- calculating benefits, for example -- and has almost half that $90 million market. PeopleSoft should earn 90 cents a share this year, and the stock trades for 33 times earnings. I think this company can sustain a 30% to 35% earnings growth rate for several years. I also like Intelligent Electronics, which distributes PCs and workstations. It's a great way to play the boom in hardware sales without buying Compaq or other makers of commodity products like the PC. I've been pounding the table for years on Solectron, which assembles circuitboards and other parts for computer makers. If Solectron is not the best-managed company in America, it is certainly right up there near the top. All the managers are focused on their jobs and communicate the company's vision to every employee. Profits can grow 20% a year fairly easily for the next five years, and the stock should track that. I'd put another 30% in health care companies that specialize in long-term care. Capacity is already tight in nursing homes and demand will grow as the population ages. There's also going to be a great need for less acute care. After your second or third day in the hospital the intensity of the care you receive often declines, but does your hospital bill go down? No. We took a package approach and bought several companies that offer subacute care -- those that look after you between the time you need constant nursing, say, and when you go home. The three that stand out are Horizon Healthcare, Living Centers of America, and Genesis Health Ventures. The industry as a whole is growing 18% to 20%, and these companies are at least matching that. The final 30% -- and this one is a bit out of character for me -- would go into growth cyclicals, companies that have an added earnings edge in their cyclical industries. One company that's not getting the credit it deserves is Magna International, which makes auto parts. Automakers are using more suppliers like Magna, which put together big sections of a car instead of just selling a single part. I also like Trinity Industries, which makes railcars, along with I-beams and girders for bridges and highways. Demand for railcars is picking up. There's going to be a great deal of highway rebuilding over the next decade, too, which should help their specialty steel business. At $42 a share, you're paying 21 times earnings for 50% growth, year over year. Kirby Corp., a barge company on the Mississippi River, is also in an industry that will increase as the economy strengthens. At $23, the stock trades for 17 times 1994 earnings of $1.35. It should be able to keep growing at 25% to 30% for the next couple of years.

HEIKO H. THIEME Portfolio manager American Heritage fund -- It was typical Thieme: His fund is the biggest shareholder of Spectrum Information Technologies, whose value plummets when John Sculley steps out in a swirl of lawsuits. Does Thieme panic? Hardly. He answers dozens of press calls, talks to lawyers on both sides, suggests he may lend a hand quelling the controversy, and buys more shares instead. Thieme (pronounced TEEM-eh), 50, thrives amidst chaos. He takes large positions in small companies, trades 10% of his holdings heavily, and isn't shy about his accomplishments or prognostications. Is this fast-talking former Deutsche Bank strategist for real? The shareholders in his American Heritage fund must believe in him. When he bought control of the fund in 1990 for $10,000, it had one of the worst records in the business; today it's No. 1 on our list, returning an average of 43% over the past three years.

Right now, I'd allocate 80% to stocks, and 20% to cash to buy attractive opportunities when they come up. Spectrum Information Technologies is a calculated risk. Would I put my pension money in it? Hell, no. Would I put a portion of a windfall into it? Yes. The stock is justifiably one of my top ten holdings. We bought half a million shares before John Sculley joined and more when he came on. The unfortunate debacle that followed obviously reduced the value of our stock. But this company has a viable technology that can transmit written data wirelessly. That's why we've increased our holdings since Sculley left, and will continue to hold it despite Spectrum's third-quarter loss. Where can I see the stock in the next 15 months? It's $3 today. At best it could reach $10, and it won't drop below $1. Three times upside potential, vs. a $2 loss -- to me, that's attractive. I feel the SEC investigation, when all the facts are known, shouldn't hurt the prospects of the company. I also like Senetek, a British biotech company, which trades for about $5. It's a fascinating company with a drug that can alleviate impotence, which affects an estimated 10% of the male population. The product is in the approval process in Britain. Johnson & Johnson has signed a licensing agreement with Senetek for development in the U.S. and several other countries. I believe the stock is worth $12 to $15 over the next 12 to 15 months, and that's a screaming buy for me.

I'd put 30% of the $100,000 in larger, more liquid stocks. We own close to 100,000 shares of IBM, and it might become our No. 1 holding later this year. Big Blue is a classic turnaround situation. If ((CEO)) Lou Gerstner pulls it off, the stock will be well north of $100 per share in three years. I own Merck because it has been beaten up too much. It's the premier company in the pharmaceutical industry. It sells for $33 per share, and my price target is the low 40s. I think drug stocks as a whole, including Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer, and Glaxo, will come back. I like Eastman Kodak because of the new CEO. George Fisher was very smart at Motorola, and now he's at Kodak. The company used to have one of the best brand names in the world, but let the competition skin it alive. Fisher is brutal. He is changing the direction of the company. I wouldn't be surprised if the $42 stock moved to $60 over the next 18 months.

JOHN WALLACE Portfolio manager Oppenheimer Main Street Income & Growth fund -- When John Wallace, 39, is not on Wall Street, he is helping his daughter, 6, master first grade. Maybe we should all go back to school. Wallace's other charge, the Oppenheimer Main Street Income & Growth fund, is the top growth- and-income fund on our list, with 35% tax- and load-adjusted return over the past three years.

With $100,000 to invest and a time horizon of four to five years, I'd put 75% in equities, with 55% in the U.S. and 20% abroad. For income, I'd put another 15% in convertible bonds. With convertibles, you get your coupon plus the potential for capital appreciation, which I don't think you're going to get in straight bonds. Finally, I'd keep 10% in cash to buy something you may like later. Looking out through the rest of the decade, the telecom area is still very attractive. Even if you take out multimedia hype, you have high double-digit growth in wireless and foreign telecom areas. I like AT&T because it's got the world's largest network, a powerful brand name, a huge customer base, and overseas partnerships. When the merger with McCaw Cellular is completed, it'll be the No. 1 provider of cellular service. The stock can earn $3.25 this year and $3.70 in 1995. It's $54 now and should get into the $80 range over the next two years. Another one that looks good is Millicom International. The company develops and operates cellular networks throughout the world, primarily in developing countries. Subscribers have doubled in the past year, to 61,000. The growth is going to be huge. I think the stock, which trades for $24, can get to the high 40s or low 50s over the next couple of years. I'm also looking for companies that are restructuring. Cost cutting will continue to be important in the U.S. and is just beginning in other countries. In Canada, I like Moore Corp., the world's largest manufacturer of business forms. It operates in Brazil, Europe, and North America. As those economies turn up, earnings should improve. Moore has almost no debt, and its new management will trim $130 million in costs over the next couple years. The company, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange, should earn $1.10 this year and has a 4.7% dividend yield. Shares are $19, but at the last peak in the business cycle they were $34 and could get close to that again. In the U.S., I like CONTINENTAL AIRLINES, which sells for $23. With the improving world economies, lower fuel prices, capacity cutbacks, and cost cutting, the company should finally do well. It's out of Chapter 11 and is the lowest-cost carrier among the major airlines. If the economy holds up, everything is in place for this stock to reach $40. We found another pair of promising companies in an offbeat area: dentistry. In the U.S. the market for everything from false teeth to drills and other equipment is mature, growing 5% or 6% a year. But in Asia and Latin America it's growing 25% or so. We like two of the industry leaders: Dentsply International and Sybron International. Dentsply, which trades for $43, does about 40% of its business overseas. It is now setting up joint ventures to sell dental supplies in China and India. Sybron, whose stock goes for $33, has good management and strong cash flow, and is slowly moving abroad.

Among convertibles I like a Delta Air Lines issue, which fits in with what I was saying about Continental. Delta has a discount bond that came out at $73 and trades for $79, so the $3.23 coupon yields 4%. You have 2.5 years of call protection left and a 5.8% yield to maturity. It matures in June 2003, and I'd say it's a safe bet that Delta will still be in business in 2003. In the worst case, you'd get 100 cents on your dollar. As the economy continues to improve, there's also the possibility that the credit rating of the bond will be upgraded, pushing the price higher. If Delta's stock appreciates, the bond should give you 70% of that increase. I also own the convertible bond of NovaCare, which provides various rehabilitation therapies in its own clinics or in hospitals and nursing homes. There's a 5.5% coupon on the bond, which matures in 2000. It trades for $96 now, giving it a current yield of 6%. It has call protection for two years and is callable at $103. This bond should pick up 60% to 65% of any upward movement in NovaCare's stock.

GARY PILGRIM President and chief investment officer Pilgrim Baxter & Associates -- Gary Pilgrim is about as ascetic as his name implies. He professes, with a slight Oklahoma twang, to love nothing more than his work, which takes up at least 14 hours of his day, including two after he gets home. His devotion has paid off. Pilgrim, 53, makes the investment decisions for $3 billion of pension and mutual fund money and runs the top-ranked PBHG Growth fund. Since he eliminated the sales load on the fund last July, assets have ballooned from $10 million to $225 million. His terrific record helped attract new followers as well: PBHG Growth has returned an annual average of 33%, on a tax- and load-adjusted basis, over the past three years.

I'd divide $100,000 among 11 small-capitalization stocks that we judge to be growing faster than the market seems to think. Wall Street chronically underestimates very high growth rate companies, and finding them is where you get earnings surprises -- and stocks that go up five, six or seven times over a three- to five-year period. In the technology sector, I'd pick three companies: Cheyenne Software, Atmel, and KLA Instruments. I expect that Cheyenne's earnings per share will grow 45% a year. But with a P/E of 25, Wall Street is treating this stock as if it's growing at half that rate. Cheyenne is the market leader in making network backup software, a $100 million business that will increase to $600 million in the next five years. Earnings at Atmel, which makes semi-conductors, should grow 50% over the next four quarters and about 40% per year after that. Again, its P/E of 21 is less than half its growth rate. That's cheap. KLA makes testing systems used by manufacturers of semiconductors. That industry is in a booming multiyear, multibillion-dollar capital-spending cycle. KLA's future seems assured. At $38, KLA stock sells for 24 times our earnings estimates for the next four quarters.

We have 25% in health care, not because we planned it that way but because that's where the fast-growing companies are. I'd recommend Vencor, which runs centers for patients who need help to breathe and so have to be on ventilators for extended periods of time. The incentive in managed care is to get patients out of hospitals and into lower-cost environments, and Vencor does just that. The company is a 30%-a-year grower, longer term. The current P/E is 20 times earnings, or 0.7 times its expected growth rate. I also like Health Management Associates, which acquires undermanaged hospitals and makes successes out of them. Earnings are rising at 25% a year. The company sells for just under its growth rate because the market is slowly realizing that this is a fairly low- risk business strategy. Value Health is another low-risk recommendation. Its earnings are growing at 40%. The biggest part of its business is managing prescription drug services for corporations. We think we can make 40% a year just on the growth rate. Among the stocks I like in the retail area are some that are a little racier, perhaps. Sunglass Hut International sells nonprescription sunglasses at kiosks in malls all over the U.S. The sunglasses business has just exploded, and this company's earnings will grow by about 60%, to $1.35 a share, over the Damark International high-end mail-order company that sells computers, office equipment, and other products through catalogues. Over the next four quarters, earnings should grow 60%, to $1.05 a share. One of my favorite stocks in the service area is Input/Output, which provides seismic measurement equipment to the oil industry. Here's a good example of a company that doesn't get a lot of respect. We expect profits will grow 40% over the next four quarters, but it sells for only 16 times earnings per share. The company has done well, regardless of whether energy prices were up or down. Another good investment is IDB Communications, an international long-distance carrier. Profits should rise 50% over the next 12 months, but the stock sells for only 30 times earnings. IDB has been signing up customers left and right. Finally, I'd invest in Cyrk, which puts together promotions * for consumer-product companies like Philip Morris. It's been public for only a year or so. We're estimating a 70% growth rate for the next four quarters, and its shares are a bargain at only 15 times earnings.