Mr. Yunus, a native of Bangladesh, returned to his country to help with its transition to independence in the early 1970s after teaching economics in the U.S. The crowded country was desperately poor and lacked the infrastructure to deal with famine, Mr. Yunus said during a March 3 speech at Emory University.

At the time, Mr. Yunus began providing loans to help poor women start small enterprises. Those tiny sums were the seeds of Grameen Bank, an institution that has now lent more than $8 billion, mostly in amounts of $200 or less, to impoverished but industrious women in Bangladesh.

The micro-loan model has seen success, even where it has been replicated in the U.S. But poverty is rooted in longstanding institutions, Mr. Yunus said. Without reform through education, the next generation won't be able to build on the prosperity of their predecessors, he added.

For micro-finance to work in the long run, it must be accompanied by education. To that end, Grameen Bank provides 50,000 scholarships, Mr. Yunus said. In addition to its micro lending work, Mr. Yunus said Grameen Bank has partnered with the French firm Danone S.A., known as Dannon in the U.S., to offer a healthy, cheap yogurt to the poor in Bangladesh.

Other companies like Adidas are working with Grameen on a variety of poverty-reduction efforts, he said.

Mr. Yunus gave the annual Goodrich C. White Lecture in a packed Glenn Memorial Auditorium. The venue's Web site lists its capacity at 1,400.

Trina Bolton provided reporting for this article.

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