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Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), has a simple way to explain his goals. "When most people see young black men walking across a campus," he says, "they think, There goes the basketball team. We want them to think, There goes the chemistry honors society."

It's more than a sentiment. As president of a relatively small (11,000 students) and young (founded 36 years ago) university, Hrabowski is nurturing a new generation of world-class scientists and mathematicians, the majority of whom are African-American. He recruits the top high-school students in the United States to attend UMBC as part of the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program. Launched in 1988, the program is one of the most successful of its kind. Ninety percent of its participants graduate in math, engineering, or the sciences, and 90% of those students attend graduate school.

The secret? Hrabowski's exacting standards, his hands-on approach to teaching and mentoring, and an environment where, as he puts it, "it's cool to be smart." Instead of a football team, UMBC fields a chess team that has won five of the past six college championships.

If anyone can do something about the scarcity of African-Americans in the elite of technology, math, and science, it's Hrabowski, who earned a PhD at the ripe age of 24. Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, he was often the only student in his class who not only enjoyed math but excelled at it. As a 13-year-old high-school junior, he visited the Tuskegee Institute and met a black college math professor who became his role model. "I envisioned having a PhD and teaching math and being a dean," he says. "Every morning, I'd look in the mirror and say, 'Good morning, Dr. Hrabowski.' "

Having made good on his own dreams (he became a dean at 26), Hrabowski, now 51, focuses on helping others realize theirs. Initially, UMBC recruited the best and brightest African-American males to be Meyerhoff Scholars. The program was later expanded to include top women and eventually top students of all races, but the emphasis still remains on African-Americans, who typically earn 2% of all PhD degrees awarded each year, despite the fact that they represent 12% of the population.

It's not that African-American students aren't interested in these subjects. They just don't tend to major in them. Often, they don't do well in introductory science and math courses, says Hrabowski, because many come from poorly funded public schools that didn't prepare them for college. Also, those courses are often designed to weed out weaker students from prospective majors. When black students who performed well in high school are confronted with far more difficult material and greater competition, he says, many get discouraged and opt for a different major.

The summer before their freshman year, the approximately 50 Meyerhoff Scholars (chosen from about 1,500 applicants with an average SAT score of 1,300 or higher) attend the Summer Bridge program, a six-week college-preparatory boot camp. They take classes in science, math, and African-American studies and attend seminars on time management. The students live in the same dorm and study in small groups, a practice that they can continue until graduation.