For her 50th birthday, Suzanne Stemme decided to give herself a new career.

Ms. Stemme had been an executive assistant at several companies during her working life. While she loved the challenge of working for top managers, she longed for more independence and flexibility.

Her solution was to become a virtual assistant. She's now in business for herself, performing from her Flower Mound home the same sorts of duties as she did before. The difference is that her services are billed by the hour, marketed to a variety of clients - and conducted almost entirely via telephone, fax and personal computer.

"I looked at it as a way to do what I really wanted to do, at a place I really wanted to be, which was here in my home," said Ms. Stemme, who already has two clients one week into her official launch.

The target market for this latest spin on the traditional secretarial service is the estimated 8.7 million Americans who now own home-based businesses. That trend is merging with another - the desire of support staff such as Ms. Stemme to have more control of their working lives. It's a natural link, said Stacy Brice, a Maryland-based virtual assistant who recently expanded into training others.

"First and foremost, this is a partnership between the busy entrepreneur and the person assisting them," Ms. Brice said. "These are two business owners working together, one supporting the other."

While people have been providing business services of various kinds for years as independent contractors, the idea of marketing executive assistant-level services in this way is relatively new - enabled by technological advances in personal computing and software.

"It is a trend, and I think it will increase in the future, especially as videoconferencing spreads," said Rick Stroud, a spokesman for Professional Secretaries International, a trade organization.

The need is real, said Dr. Joanne Pratt, a Dallas expert on virtual work. A typical home-based professional begins wanting to delegate some of the details as a business grows. Still, full-time help probably isn't needed. And even if the entrepreneur wanted another person at his or her elbow, zoning regulations might prohibit it.

"When you work away from the normal workplace, you lose your support system. You're the one person who has to answer the door for Federal Express, book your appointments. . . . There's a lot of that overhead work you end up doing that you shouldn't be doing if you want to grow your business," Dr. Pratt said.

Ask Madeleine Homan, a New York-based business coach who provides one-on-one advice to business owners and professionals.

"I'd rather roll on broken glass than deal with computers," Ms. Homan says. Edwina Adams, her Plano-based virtual assistant, designs and publishes the client newsletter. She keeps Ms. Homan's Web site updated and schedules appointments. The two have never met .

"I give her tasks that are my idea of hell - like the Web stuff," said Ms. Homan, who also has a part-time assistant in her home office for more routine tasks such as keeping the books and going to the post office. Ms. Adams' hourly rate is twice what the clerical assistant earns, Ms. Homan said - and it's worth it.

"She's charming, and I can trust her to make calls reminding people of events I'm doing, confirming appointments. . . . She's a good listener. She actually coaches me. I'll say, 'I've got this project. Do you think this is the best way to do it?' And she'll say, 'Well, I had another client, this is how he did it,' " Ms. Homan said.

In fact, Ms. Adams, with a master's degree in systems analysis and a rŽsumŽ of managerial jobs, may seem overly credentialed for executive assistant work. She disagrees. "I love working from home. I love the clients I have," she said.

"There are people who've asked me why I decided to do this, because I have a very good background. But I've reached the point in my life where I really don't want the rat race that I perceive the corporate world to be," said Ms. Adams, who is 56.

She took Ms. Brice's 16-week "Assist University" training (www.assistu.com) and launched her business a year ago. Ms. Adams now works from 30 to 50 hours a week for clients in Dallas and elsewhere.

To do it, she said, you need to be "detail-oriented, but also capable of looking at the big picture. You need the ability to listen, problem-solve and then communicate back. A good sense of humor is a great thing to have."

While Ms. Adams wanted independence, others are motivated by family concerns. Massachusetts resident Shelly O'Connor, a 38-year-old former executive assistant for a large corporation, wanted time with her two small children.

She works about 25 to 30 hours a week at her business while the kids are in preschool or cared for by her sister.

"A key driver for me was the flexibility, yet in a support role such as I've enjoyed for years," she said. "Typically they don't go hand in hand."

Virtual assistants charge $20 an hour and up, Ms. Brice said, depending on experience and duration of the work, among other factors. While no one will get rich on those numbers, an assistant who can bill an average of 30 hours a week for 49 weeks at $30, for example, will net about $44,000 yearly. And that's without the expenses of working in a downtown high-rise, several assistants pointed out.

"I'm not making as much money as I did when I worked full time, but my life is fulfilling," said Daisy Johnson Wright of Ontario, Canada, whose 4-year-old home business specializes in rŽsumŽ writing as well as secretarial services. "How do you measure success?"

Still, if this sounds like a cakewalk, it shouldn't, said Lynette Smith, executive director of the Association of Business Support Services International, a California-based trade organization.

"It's a viable concept, with cautions," said Ms. Smith. "It isn't instant success. It takes somewhere between three and 12 months before income outweighs expenses." A key ingredient: the ability to market.

One administrative assistant who tried a home-based secretarial service - but failed to bring in enough business - agreed. "You have to be a salesperson, and if you're geared toward doing for other people, promoting yourself can be way out of your realm," warned the woman, who asked not to be identified.

Ms. Brice is trying to address the marketing issue by starting a registry of virtual assistants on her Web site. The 60 alumnae of her course also help each other solve problems through chat rooms.

Ms. Stemme of Flower Mound found her first two clients on her own, one of them through a local chamber of commerce networking group that she attends religiously.

The new client is a two-person real estate office with a Web site that's garnering more inquiries than the Realtors can conveniently handle.

"They've been sending out hard-copy packets of information," Ms. Stemme said. "It's been time-consuming to get them printed, put together and mailed. So I suggested we respond by e-mail with attachments." She's taking on that responsibility.

For another new client, a diversity consultant, Ms. Stemme will manage an upcoming conference, from registration to "being the point person for the caterer."

Sitting in her sunny yellow home office, looking out the bay window that she loves, Ms. Stemme said she's optimistic about reaching her goal of 30 to 40 billable hours a week.

"This allows me to work with the kind of people I want to work with," she said. "Yet it spreads the work so it isn't a burden."

Career Strategies appears weekly. If there is a career issue you would like to see addressed in this column, write Diana Kunde at The Dallas Morning News, P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, Texas 75265; or fax to (214) 977-8776. Send e-mail to diKunde@aol.com.