There are no happy endings yet. The kids are still young, still taking shape. So Johnson celebrates victories as they come. The students who have perfect attendance. The girl who stopped running away from home, for now. The boy who now shakes Johnson's hand without looking down at the ground. "That says something about his self-esteem," Johnson says. "That's not a trivial thing."

Some days, the greatest satisfaction for Johnson happens when he looks out his office window and sees the buses pull up to the business school and the kids tumble out. "There's something about them being here. You remember that they could be out on the street getting in trouble or getting their brains blown out, but they're here with us. They're safe."

It's enough that they've crossed that bridge.

Chuck Salter (csalter@fastcompany.com) is a senior writer at Fast Company. Contact Jim Johnson by email (jim_johnson@unc.edu).

Sidebar: How to Build Bridges

Jim Johnson believes that the way to rebuild poor communities is to build bridges that connect them to greater opportunities. These five principles form the foundations for those bridges.

1. Poor communities are part of the solution, not part of the problem. They are emerging markets that the private sector has chosen to ignore, rather than to invest in, Johnson says -- which doesn't make sense. Companies that fund educational programs act in a form of "enlightened self-interest" that offers a tangible return: highly skilled graduates who could satisfy their employment needs.
2. Think big, start small. Transforming a poor community into a competitive one -- and making sure that it stays competitive -- is a daunting task. Rather than trying to design one comprehensive project targeted at every need, Johnson focuses his effort on smaller projects. Each one is its own experiment. If it works for one community, he applies the model elsewhere. The after-school program is now being replicated in four other sites in North Carolina.
3. Connections count.In poor communities, people are isolated from other segments of society, says Johnson, so they don't develop a network of role models and mentors whom they can consult for leads on jobs, on customers, on resources, or simply for support. Durham Scholars gives disadvantaged children more advantages -- and then some. "We've got MBA mentors who are going to work for hp, J.P. Morgan, and Goldman Sachs," says Johnson. "These are the best connections imaginable."
4. Expand their horizon.Four days a week, the Durham Scholars are bused to the Kenan-Flagler Business School, where children from Durham's poorest neighborhoods study in the same classrooms that MBA students use. Johnson's idea: The more he exposes kids to the world outside their neighborhoods, the better they understand the options that they have. When Michael Dell visited the business school, his speech was piped into the Durham Scholars classrooms. It didn't matter to Johnson that parts of the lecture were over the heads of the kids. The point was to open their eyes, to show them the person behind the brand name on their computers.
5. There's more than one way to be successful. Johnson would like to see all of the Durham Scholars use the college scholarship that he offers them, but he knows that not all will. And that's okay. His goal is to help disadvantaged children lead successful lives, whatever that may mean: attending trade school, being a responsible parent, or just staying out of trouble. To Johnson, each path represents a different definition of success.