(FORTUNE Magazine) – No enterprise can achieve greatness without a superior product or service. Thus have our most successful business leaders--alive or dead, and bound for the Hall of Fame--explored all paths in search of that grail. They push quality up, costs down, and technology to its limits.

FORTUNE recently elected seven new laureates, each a tireless nurturer of superlative goods. Roy Vagelos and Philip Caldwell turned lumbering companies into superstars by rejuvenating product development. Ray Noorda made an orphan into a champion. Frederick Maytag and Frank Woolworth pursued quality so well they became household names. At 3M, William McKnight created a cornucopia of new wares by fostering entrepreneurs within his company. Alexander Hamilton? His fiscal policies established America's credit--and kicked off the country's first economic boom.

Junior Achievement, which educates young people about business, sponsors the Hall of Fame, and Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry has a gallery of laureates. The newcomers will be inducted April 20 at a Minneapolis banquet.

Dr. P. Roy Vagelos born 1929 Merck & Co.

He had great chemistry with research scientists and recruited them with the zeal of a world-class coach.

As a boy, Roy Vagelos acquired the work ethic by scrubbing pots, peeling potatoes, and pouring coffee after school in a luncheonette that his Greek-immigrant parents owned in Rahway, New Jersey. But that's not all he learned in the family business.

He also acquired a calling, biochemistry, along with a knack for attracting and motivating high-powered scientists. Many of the customers who came into the diner were researchers from the nearby laboratory of drugmaker Merck. Vagelos and his older sister, Joan, who also worked in the diner, liked talking with the scientists and asking them questions. Joan eventually married one of the regulars, and Vagelos elected chemistry as his major when he entered the University of Pennsylvania. When he returned 28 years later to become Merck's head of research, he put his zeal for biochemistry and his rapport with scientists to great use: Rising to chairman, he transformed Merck into a font of new medicines and the wonder of the pharmaceutical industry. Under Roy Vagelos, Merck reigned as America's most admired corporation for seven consecutive years.

Vagelos paid his way through college in part by waiting tables, and then went to Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, to Massachusetts General Hospital for his internship and residency, and to the National Institutes of Health in lieu of military service. Although required to stay only two years at NIH, Vagelos spent the next ten years conducting research on such questions as how the body regulates fats. In 1965 he moved to the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where he became chairman of the biochemistry department.

In 1975, when Vagelos, at 45, was a distinguished scientist-teacher and a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, Merck called. The company was suffering a drought of new products and wanted someone to revive its R&D. In those days successful academics rarely moved into the business arena, but Vagelos took the job and returned to Rahway. Pharmaceutical research was traditionally a trial and error process: Find new compounds at random and test them on living things to see if they have any beneficial effects. But Vagelos was one of a few leading-edge thinkers who wanted a more systematic approach: Identify enzymes in the human body that are involved in disease and attack them.

His approach led to a remarkable outpouring of new medicines, including Mevacor, which blocks the production of cholesterol, and Proscar, which shrinks enlarged prostate glands in men. In the mid-1980s the company launched 13 superstar products, selling more than $100 million each, while its nearest competitor had only five such drugs. To keep the research moving, Vagelos vigorously recruited talent even after he became chairman, and he opened labs in four countries because, he says, "we don't have all the best minds." Between 1985, when Vagelos became chief executive, and 1994, when he retired, revenues grew from $3.5 billion to $15 billion, and net income from $540 million to $3 billion.

In 1987, Vagelos announced a plan to wipe out river blindness, a debilitating parasitic disease in Africa. Through organizations like the World Health Organization, Merck is distributing a powerful antiparasitic drug called Ivermectin to more than 11 million Africans a year. "The drugs I've been involved with have helped more than 100 million people," says Vagelos, "so I feel like I've had a good ride." And it's not over yet. After retiring from Merck, he joined a tiny drug company called Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. "If you're willing to ask dumb questions," he says, "you can move anywhere."

Raymond J. Noorda born 1924 Novell Inc.

He traveled around fixing broken companies until he stumbled on a product that matched his vision.

It took young people to create the personal computer revolution, unencumbered as they are by the type of questions an older person might ask, such as "What purpose will it serve?" and "How much will it cost?" Instead they tinkered in garages and rec rooms for the sheer joy of gadgeteering. But it took the gray hair of Ray Noorda to see how quickly all those computers would be talking with each other via networks that span the globe.

When he was 59, Noorda became president of Novell Inc., a nearly bankrupt manufacturer of computer equipment located in Provo, Utah. The company's hardware was a flop in the market, but two software engineers who worked for the company as consultants had written a program in their spare time that enabled personal computers to share data banks, printers, and other equipment. At the time, PCs were just beginning to make their way into offices and homes in large numbers, and the notion of tying them together in networks was only a dream. Nevertheless, Noorda closed down Novell's equipment manufacturing business and began selling the networking program under the name NetWare.

The dream paid off. Sales exploded after 1989 when Novell came out with a version of NetWare that enabled once incompatible computers to work together. This allowed corporations and other users that had accumulated hodgepodges of different computer brands to tie them together as one. Last year revenues reached almost $2 billion, with NetWare accounting for two-thirds of its market.

Born in Ogden, Utah, and the third of four children, the young Noorda worked on a railroad, sold magazines, and picked cherries to help his family during the Great Depression. He graduated from the University of Utah in 1949 with a degree in electrical engineering and went to work for General Electric. He spent 21 years there earning a reputation as an intramural entrepreneur, starting up new businesses and product lines within GE. In 1970 he went out on his own as a company-turnaround specialist for small companies in trouble. His business card identified Noorda as "itinerant president" and explained the name of his business, RTB Ink., as "red to black ink." Since adopting Novell, he's done most of his roaming via computer and his extended net.

Philip Caldwell born 1920 Ford Motor Co.

His instinct told him that if he could get the quality right, the volume would follow. And so it did.

Philip Caldwell learned the importance of dogged planning during World War II when he was a logistics officer on the staff of Admiral Nimitz at Pearl Harbor. Caldwell's task was to plan and build ordnance facilities at military bases scattered across the Pacific. Failure could have resulted in thousands of Allied casualties and prolonged the war. Unstinting attention to detail enabled Caldwell's team to succeed.

That lesson came in handy 35 years later when Caldwell faced a similar, albeit peacetime, campaign against the same tough foe. It was 1979 and Japanese autos were pouring into the U.S. Henry Ford II, who was retiring as chairman of Ford Motor, picked Caldwell as his successor, the first chairman who was not a member of the family.

It was a time of peril for the company. Its cars were boxy-looking and out of date, and quality was poor. Federal requirements for better fuel economy and safety standards were soaking up capital and management time. It mattered little that GM and Chrysler were hurting too: The Japanese were gaining on all fronts, and many onlookers feared that Detroit might never recover.

But Caldwell believed that "if you get the quality right, the volume will take care of itself." So he set out methodically to fix Ford's product line, a task that entailed restructuring factories and most of the company as well. Insisting that "quality is job No. 1," he ordered a family of aerodynamic, fuel-efficient cars that set a trend in the industry. Says Caldwell: "We redesigned everything but the air in the tires." The flagship, the Taurus, went on to become the best-selling car in America.

By the time Caldwell retired, Ford's U.S. market share had increased from 16% to 19%, and he had executed one of the biggest corporate turnarounds in history.

The son of a farmer, Caldwell grew up in South Charleston, Ohio. He attended Muskingum College, majoring in economics, debating on the school's championship team, and graduating in 31/2 years. His thoroughness and his ability to stage magnificent comebacks were already evident when, in 1939, his senior year, he interviewed with Procter & Gamble. The interviewer told him he was well qualified except that, at 19, he was too young. That night Caldwell dug up a 1931 Fortune article about P&G that said President Richard Deupree had joined the company at about the same age. With the magazine clutched in his hand, Caldwell returned and got the job.

After six months, however, he quit and enrolled in the Harvard business school, class of '42. He received a Navy commission in 1942 and was sent to the Pacific in January 1944. After the war he worked as a civilian in the Navy's procurement department and joined Ford in 1953 as head of procurement. He moved up quickly, always practicing a dictum of one of his Harvard teachers: "If you wish to succeed in business, you must love your product."

Frederick L. Maytag 1857-1937 Maytag Corp.

When he was 64, he went on the road to sell his new machine and soon became king of the market.

No one searched more doggedly for the perfect product than Frederick Maytag--and, in the end, none found better. F.L. Maytag--people called him by his initials-was raised on an Iowa homestead, the eldest of ten children. Life on the frontier demanded hard labor, and Maytag started young, weeding gardens, gathering eggs, and feeding animals. At 10, he was tilling 80 acres with a horse-drawn plow. His chores and the farm's isolation meant he attended school for only 22 months.

Tired of farming--but never of hard work--Maytag moved to Newton, Iowa, in 1880. There he became a salesman at a farm equipment dealership called McKinley & Bergman. In 18 months he saved $800 (90% of his wages), bought out McKinley's share of the firm, and married Bergman's sister. He was by then 24 years old and embarked on a classic career of entrepreneurship that didn't climax for almost 50 years.

He sold his share of the dealership in 1890 and tried venture upon venture, some of which ended dismally. At various times he sold lumber, organized a railroad, and made cars, to no avail.

But he also had a string of successes, including a device that fed grain to threshing machines and a corn husker. Maytag came out with his first washing machine in 1907, hoping to compensate for seasonal swings in his farm implements.

By the early 1920s Maytag was the eighth-largest maker of such machines, but the company was losing money. Then came the Gyrafoam model. It combined an aluminum tub and a washing action that pushed water through the clothes rather than dragging the clothes through the water. At 64, Maytag went on the road himself to sell it, and Gyrafoam catapulted his company to market leader. When he died, F.L. left between $1,000 and $50,000 apiece to 200 of Newton's residents and $1,000 to each Maytag employee who'd been with the company for three or more years.

Alexander Hamilton 1755 or 1757-1804 First Secretary of the Treasury

He vowed to pay the nation's debt because he understood that trust and confidence go before commerce.

Strictly speaking, Hamilton was not a businessman. Although he founded the Bank of New York and the New York Evening Post, Hamilton devoted most of his life to public service. But the bank, the newspaper, and countless other enterprises in the nascent republic might well have perished were it not for Hamilton's brilliance as the nation's first Treasury Secretary. Indeed, if it can be said that free enterprise as we know it was born after the American Revolution, then Hamilton was the doctor who delivered and spanked the baby.

Victory left the economy stagnant and the government wallowing in debt while centrifugal political forces were pulling the country apart. Hamilton's challenge was to reverse the downward spiral of depression, but the economy was too weak to tax, and his options looked limited. Many politicians urged President Washington to get rid of the debt by paying only a few cents on the dollar for all its IOUs--but that would have shattered confidence in the new nation.

Instead, Hamilton came up with an ingenious plan that refunded the debt at par and earmarked customs duties to pay the interest. With faith that they would receive full payment, with interest, creditors used their federal promissory notes like cash. Thus, in one stroke, Hamilton had established the nation's credit and monetized the debt. The independent economy began its first boom.

Hamilton was the illegitimate son of a Scottish aristocrat and the wife of a St. Croix merchant. She died when the boy was about 10, shortly after he had gone to work as the bookkeeper in the local office of a New York import-export firm. When he was 14, his employers sent him to Britain's American colonies, where he entered King's College, now Columbia University. Soon he joined the cause for independence and fought beside Washington. After the war he married into a wealthy New York family, the Schuylers, acquired a law degree, and founded the bank and the newspaper. The victim of a duel with Aaron Burr, Hamilton left behind seven children--and an economically sound nation.

Frank W. Woolworth 1852-1919 F.W. Woolworth & Co.

This self-perceived "boob from the country" was the first retailer to let browsers handle the merchandise.

Recalling his first fumbling day working in a village store, Frank Woolworth once described himself as a "boob from the country." He was from the country, all right, born in Rodman, New York, a tiny hamlet in a land of long and bitter winters 250 miles northwest of New York City. But he was no boob. Woolworth capitalized on a retailing trend before any of the merchant princes in the great hubs of commerce could react. His "five-and-ten-cent store" changed retailing and became a cultural institution. When he died in 1919, he had more than 1,000 stores, with annual sales of $120 million.

Woolworth's parents were farmers, but as a boy he played store with his younger brother and dreamed of leaving the farm. When he reached 21, Frank became an unpaid apprentice at the Corner Store in Watertown, New York, working from seven in the morning until nine at night. Eventually he became a clerk, earning $3.50 a week.

Five years later the storeowners asked Woolworth to set out a table of "notions"--thimbles, combs, pencils, and the like, all selling for 5 cents-as a promotion to bring people into the store. It succeeded so well that Woolworth borrowed $315 and opened a store selling only notions for 5 cents each in Utica. It failed, but a second store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, took off. Woolworth sold 31% of his stock on the first day for $127.65, or 2,553 nickel purchases. Soon he raised the price limit to 10 cents, which enabled him to expand the range of merchandise. He was the first retailer to put all his wares on counters where shoppers could touch them. And, although a skinflint with wages, he was one of the first employers to give employees stock in the company, making many early lieutenants wealthy.

Woolworth, to paraphrase an old song, created a million-dollar baby with his five-and-ten-cent store.

William L. McKnight 1887-1978 Minnesota Mining & Mftg.

He turned a $500 laboratory into 3M--beneficiary of a fountain of new products that gushes still.

In 1907 a Dakotas farm boy with a high school diploma took a job as assistant bookkeeper at a nearly bankruptÊsandpaper manufacturing company in St. Paul. Almost six decades later the Dakotan retired as chairman and left behind one of the largest and most prodigiously innovative companies in history: Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing, or 3M. The former farm boy, of course, was William McKnight.

McKnight was born in 1887 on a pioneer homestead settled by his parents near White, South Dakota. After graduating from high school, he saved enough money by threshing grain to enter Duluth Business University. But, restless for a career, he quit in five months and joined the sandpaper company, which used to mine for its abrasives. He moved up quickly, becoming general manager and a director of the company in 1915, and president in 1929.

In 1916 he put the company on the path of research, spending $500 for a laboratory to test the quality of the company's sandpapers before they were shipped to customers.

He also ordered the lab to search for new products, and soon they began the rush that continues today: "Wetordry" sandpaper, masking tape, Scotch tape, magnetic recording tape, and, in 1980, Post-its, those ubiquitous, sticky yellow note papers. To keep the innovations flowing, McKnight organized the company into product units, each running independently with its own R&D, manufacturing, and sales departments. He encouraged them to develop new products and then spun those products off into independent groups. Today 3M has more than 50 such units, which together manufacture some 60,000 things. In 1994 sales passed $15 billion.

In retirement, McKnight bought several Broadway theaters and financed various Broadway musicals, including How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. That certainly was never true of himself. "I'm not smarter than other people," he liked to say. "I just put in a lot more time."