an interesting - and increasingly wealthy - batch of candidates who draw on their own resources to fund campaigns. Campaign-finance reform in the 1970s restricted contributions and "put a premium on being able to underwrite yourself," says Charles Bullock, a Congress expert at the University of Georgia in Athens.

Vying for a seat in this election, for example, is Republican Randy Hoffman, a millionaire businessman who founded Magellan Systems, the world's first and largest manufacturer of global positioning satellite navigation systems. Mr. Hoffman has spent more than $450,000 of his own money in an expensive bid to unseat Rep. Brad Sherman (D) of California in the Los Angeles area. Meanwhile in North Carolina, textile heir Robin Hayes is favored to capture the Eighth Congressional District for the GOP.

Aside fromthe big blocs of attorneys and business owners, the House regularly has a smaller group of educators (40 to 70), a dozen-odd journalists, and a handful of physicians. This year, the lineup of challengers includes nine doctors and dentists, six professors (including a Princeton physicist), and two each of teachers, TV anchors, and radio commentators.

Beyond these broad categories, the contenders for House seats are a hodgepodge of people with strikingly different backgrounds and beliefs. Here is a sampler:

William "Bud" Walker, an apple farmer and radio-station owner, is one of the few candidates with agrarian backgrounds. Farmers, who until the 1960s made up 12 percent of the House membership, now represent only 5 percent.

Lydia Spottswood, an emergency-room nurse and mother in Kenosha, Wis., is locked in a tossup contest