The Benjamin Gilman International Scholarship Program, founded in 2000 as a means to fund study abroad for low-income students, has become the largest federally funded scholarship program for study abroad at the undergraduate level, with more than 2,300 recipients in academic year (AY) 2010-2011. Interviews with former Congressman Benjamin Gilman, and with the leadership of the Institute of International Education (IIE), which administers the program, provided insight into how the enabling legislation came to be drafted and passed in only four weeks. Interviews with 43 students who traveled on the program provided insight into how the program made travel, often to non-Western destinations, possible for low-income students, students of color, first-generation immigrant students, and community college students. The conceptual framework for the interview protocol was based on the phases of travel described in Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" (1949). The findings demonstrate that the program has fulfilled its mandate. The quality of students' experiences while overseas show that the program has opened the doors for intensive, meaningful study abroad for large numbers of students who otherwise would not have traveled. The demographics of the population served by the Gilman Program, when contrasted with the larger study-abroad population, suggests that, little by little, the program is changing the face of study abroad. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]