In earlier commentaries, we've shown just how easy it is to make a million bucks. Provided you have the discipline to sock away the savings -- and the time to let compound interest work its magic -- you, too, can be a millionaire. Indeed, $500 plunked down monthly in a mere index tracker -- such as the dirt-cheap SPDRs (SPY) exchange-traded fund -- will grow to a million bucks in just less than 28 years, if the market delivers its historical return of roughly 10.5%.

But what if you want to shoot higher and amass, say, $2 million? Is that just a matter of time and gumption, too?

Not exactly. The bigger the goal, the more critical it is to get your plan right and spring into action posthaste. If you have the stomach for volatility and the wherewithal to put financial independence on the front burner, you can reach your lofty goals. Here's how.

Go growth
Value investing has a reputation for trumping growth, but these days I’d argue that those are relative terms. Indeed, it's possible to snap up shares of stocks with double-digit earnings growth forecasts on the relative cheap.

IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM), for example, fit that profile, as do CVS Caremark (NYSE:CVS), Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA), and Medtronic (NYSE:MDT): All are trading near 52-week lows and have reasonable P/E ratios.

Add Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) and Monsanto (NYSE:MON) to that list and then add up these numbers: Over the past five years, this latter pair of aces has delivered an annualized average return of roughly 35%. Pick winners like that, and at a comparable rate of return, your journey to Two Millionaire Acres would take roughly 15 years on the $500-a-month plan. Talk about making good time.

The Foolish bottom line
It really is true that past performance is no guarantee of future results. The broad point, though, is well worth remembering: Greater risk -- in the form of stocks with earnings growth prospects that make 'em more susceptible to the market willies -- can lead to greater returns over the long haul.

Plus, there are ways of mitigating that risk. Mutual funds come to mind, as does assembling a portfolio that provides exposure to defensive "capital preservation" plays along with racier growth stocks.

As it happens, we've covered all those investment types -- and made specific recommendations -- at Ready-Made Millionaire, the Foolish investing service designed for busy investors in search of a set-and-forget wealth-building solution. Our compact lineup of just eight holdings -- four highly profitable companies, a power trio of world-class mutual funds, and an ETF that targets an undervalued area of the market -- is backed by a million dollars of the Fool's own money. I’m personally invested, too, and while we’ve taken our lumps out of the gates, our mission remains intact: to trounce the market over the long haul with little in the way of muss or fuss.

If that kind of get-it-done approach to your investing life sounds like your cup of tea, we invite you to learn more about the service and pick up a free copy of "The 11-Minute Millionaire," a special report designed to help you navigate today's volatile markets. Click here to download your copy -- and stay tuned: RMM will reopen to new members soon, and we'll let you know just as soon as that occurs.

This article was first published on March 8, 2007. It has been updated.

Shannon Zimmerman runs point on the Fool's Ready-Made Millionaire service. You can check out the Fool's strict disclosure policy by clicking right here.