Even many residents of Los Alamos can't believe that their town has the highest percentage of millionaires in the United States.

However, a study published in the November edition of Kiplinger by the financial services firm Phoenix Marketing International says that 11.7 percent of Los Alamos households are worth more than $1 million. No other town in the United States can boast more than 10 percent of its population as millionaires.

Unlike other spots on the rich list, Los Alamos doesn't have a bunch of glitzy golf courses, spas or luxury stores. There are few (if any) mansions, no fancy-schmancy restaurants and not many obvious displays of wealth.

Yet there Los Alamos is, at the top of the list, a spot that it has inhabited for at least the past five years, say the folks who did the study. (Of course, percentages are one thing, sheer numbers are another. Los Alamos has some
885 households valued at more than $1 million, while runner-up Naples, Fla., has some 12,000 millionaires.)

The reasons why the Atomic City is well off have lessons that could be replicated off the Hill.

Los Alamos residents are highly educated. The scientists and engineers who work at Los Alamos National Laboratory make good money, especially in relatively poor New Mexico (state per capita income is at $22,461, according to the census). Compare that to the average salary for the lab's 9,665 employees, $102,552. Yet no employee at the lab makes more than $1 million annually. That means rather than income inequity, as is becoming common in the rest of the United States, wages at the national laboratory go to rewarding smart people who do the daily work of science, not just the bosses who run the place.

Workers there, judging from Los Alamos' lack of luxury outlets, have different priorities than in upscale spots where the emphasis is more on shopping than science. Los Alamos residents want an excellent education for their kids. They are putting away money for retirement rather than buying out the mall.

Eventually, all that money in the bank can add up to millions. Only from the outside, there's no way to tell. And that's just how they like it in Los Alamos. Substance, not show, and a lesson for the rest of us — even those who don't make the six-figure salaries.