The spectrum of women-owned businesses ranges from full corporations to microenterprises. Women business owners share many characteristics and motivations of business owners generally; other factors are dissatisfaction with "glass ceiling" limits, desire for job flexibility, and age discrimination. Women entrepreneurs often face barriers not usually encountered by men: lack of socialization to entrepreneurship, exclusion from traditional business networks, lack of access to capital, discriminatory attitudes, gender stereotypes, and lack of confidence. Low-income women run up against barriers in the system, such as restrictions on recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Women of color face discrimination and cultural bias within their cultural group and in society. Federal support for women business owners includes programs and services of the Small Business Administration. New approaches are emerging from strategies being used in less developed countries to support women in development: stimulation of microenterprises, microcredit lending, and peer-group lending. Many women business owners are part of a new breed of entrepreneur whose goal is to identify a social cause, cultivate an opportunity, and turn it into a profit. Women's communal enterprises tend to take a holistic approach, balancing work, family, economic, and cultural values. (Contains 14 references.) (YLB)