Ahmed Zewail, the Nobel laureate in Chemistry and Caltech professor, delivered an address to the 2011 graduates from the same stage where he had handed his own daughter a Caltech science degree nearly twenty years earlier. Zewail had come to America from Egypt in 1969, armed with an excellent education but English so poor that he used to order 'deserts' instead of 'desserts' at restaurants. When asked how one wins a Nobel Prize, Zewail distilled it to passion and optimism. It was Caltech's ambiance and the country's system of support that had enabled a young assistant professor to define an entirely new scientific discipline—femtochemistry—within just ten years. But he was careful to emphasize that none of it was luck or accident. Echoing Edison's dictum about genius being one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, Zewail made the case that success is actively cultivated through preparation, passion, and an almost unreasonable optimism that the nearly impossible can be made possible.