(FORTUNE Small Business) – WHEN I SOLD BET to Viacom," says Bob Johnson (a $3 billion transaction, of which Johnson's personal cut was $1.6 billion), "I started asking myself, 'What is your second act? What do you want to do that can leverage off your track record in creating BET [Black Entertainment Television] and the knowledge you gained of how to access capital? What things interest you at this particular time in life?'"

What I'm wondering, sitting across from Johnson at the Four Seasons in Washington, D.C., while he sips water and I drink coffee, is, Why does he need any act at all? Imagine you're 59 years old. You're the first African American to take a company public on the New York Stock Exchange. You're the first African-American billionaire. You're the first African-American owner of a big-league sports franchise (the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats—named after yourself). And in January 2006 your five-year employment contract with Viacom expires, meaning that BET, as fun as it was, is not your headache anymore. Why worry about a second act? Why not just head for the after-party?

I know, I know—one success stimulates the appetite for another, if only to prove that the first time was no fluke. Or as Johnson, decked out in a cream linen suit with a blue shirt and blue-flecked yellow tie, expresses it, tenting his fingers for emphasis, "Guys like me want to say, 'I can take an idea and I can take people and I can do just about anything.'"

He certainly proved that at BET. In 1979, while working as a cable industry lobbyist, he identified an unmet need (black programming), worked his contacts (cable honcho John Malone put up $500,000), leveraged key strategic partners (HBO and Taft Broadcasting), and stuck with the plan, even after BET's 1991 IPO made Wall Street yawn. Johnson restored BET to private hands in 1998, then three years later pulled off the colossal deal with Viacom at triple the '98 valuation and joined the billionaires' club.

Still, Johnson's many attempts during the 1990s to extend the BET brand—into cosmetics, clothing, hotels, nightclubs, magazines, cellphones, and credit cards—fell flat. His dream of creating a regional airline with a hub at Ronald Reagan National Airport never gained altitude. Collectively, those flops left Johnson convinced he has something to prove.

"This is what I call recreating myself from being identified as a media guy to a financial guy," Johnson says, describing his three-part plan. Part one, hotels, is a business he knows, having served on Hilton's board. Johnson started buying hotels after 9/11, betting that despite the blow to the travel industry, "Americans like doing business face to face," he says. He now owns 11 properties, including the Hilton Cancún, and runs a $315 million private-equity fund that buys hotels. Part two, for Johnson, is banking. He says he's "very close" to acquiring a federal S&L that would give him a license to operate in every state. He wants to create a "very focused minority bank," offering mortgages and small-business and student loans in urban markets. Finally, Johnson hopes by summer's end to launch a hedge fund, although it may be late in the game. "Assuming you're successful in all three," he sums up, "you can gain a reputation as a guy who knows how to handle money. That's what I want to be." And if he can't be that? This big Democratic donor sees himself as an ambassador someday—on one condition. "I would only want an A-list country," he says, "where there was going to be action."