Fields of research are frequently cultivated by a few scientific entrepreneurs whose vision and drive inspire the rest of us. The analysis of chromatin structure and function has profited immensely from leaders such as Wolfram Horz. The yeast PHO5 promoter model developed by Wolfram Horz has become a paradigm for dissecting the events underlying promoter-specific chromatin opening in response to environmental cues. His elucidation of such events has yielded reference points for numerous followup studies investigating the emerging principles of gene regulation through chromatin reconfiguration.