An anonymous bidder in June offered a record $2.63 million to have lunch with 80-year-old billionaire investor Warren Buffett as part of an annual charity auction.

Gonzaga University professor Todd Finkle and 20 of his students in an entrepreneurship course are invited this fall to do the same: dine with Buffett and have the chance to ask him questions, for a whole lot less. They'll each dig out about $500, mainly for airfare.

"It's going to be an opportunity of a lifetime for these kids," Finkle says. He joined Gonzaga University this past fall as an entrepreneurship professor.

Finkle says the students got Buffett's attention—and invitation—after creating innovative projects this year in a class he teaches, called New Venture Creation, that were sent in May along with a letter to Buffett. One of those ideas included a design for a Warren Buffett pinball machine.

Buffett is chairman and CEO of the Omaha, Neb.-based conglomerate holding company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. He is known for inviting select groups of college students twice a year to visit with him to discuss business, ethics, and life.

On Nov. 11, the GU group is scheduled to spend the day in Omaha, along with students from Toronto, Missouri, Chicago, Notre Dame, and Texas. They'll participate in a two-hour question-and-answer session with Buffett, go to lunch with him at his favorite restaurant, and have time for individual photos with him. During the day, the Gonzaga students also will tour two companies that are Berkshire Hathaway subsidiaries, Nebraska Furniture Mart and Borsheim's Jewelers.

This will be Finkle's second trip to take students to see Buffett. In 2009, before taking his post at Gonzaga, Finkle led 27 University of Akron students to a day-long session at Buffett's invitation.

Finkle had just spent two years researching and writing a case study on Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. He started the paper around 2007 after being told then by Buffett's secretary that he shouldn't bother putting his class's name on a visitation waiting list because the list was too long.

"But I kept thinking about it, and at the same time, I wanted to learn all I could about Warren Buffett, because he's probably the most successful business person since J.P. Morgan in the 1930s," Finkle says. Morgan was a financier and banker heavily involved in corporate finance and industrial consolidation, including a merger that led to forming General Electric.

Finkle's paper on Buffett was published in a journal, and the professor got an entrepreneurial idea. "I thought, I'm going to think outside of the box. Why don't I just send the study to Buffett and see if we could get invited."

He got a reply, and the invitation, within 10 days.

"For a couple of my students, their parents started to cry when they heard about that," Finkle adds.

Once he came to Gonzaga, Finkle didn't forget about the impact of time spent with Buffet either. He told his new Gonzaga students about Buffet, and how he admires persistence, hard work, creativity, and innovation. He also gave those GU students an assignment: Break into teams and create new products they'd "sell" to Buffett with the objective of getting an invite to Omaha.

The assignment reflects his belief that it's important to give students the freedom to create new products in an entrepreneurial class culture, Finkle says.

"The students have the freedom to choose their own teams, independently work on projects, and have time to come up with and create ideas," he says. "I'd say it worked very well."

He adds, "What America needs are people coming up with new ideas and new products to create jobs, businesses, and new industries."

At the end of the semester, class members had created five products to consider sending to Buffett, but the students and Finkle selected the best three.

One team in Finkle's class created a parody of the board game, Clue, importing the Gonzaga campus for the scene and game pieces that included Buffett, the university president, and a student. Buffet received the game with the submission.

The students who developed the Buffett pinball machine idea didn't have enough time or financing to build an actual device, but their detailed design was mailed to Buffett. Finkle says that Buffett, as a teenager, made money by buying pinball machines, placing them in barber shops, and offering to split the profits with the shop owners.

A DVD that students created about Gonzaga University and its value system was the third project sent to Buffett.

Buffett's invitation only has room for 20, so Finkle's 25 students in the class had to work together creatively yet again to determine who should get to go.

"A minimum of seven students had to be women," he says. "Fifteen students that created the winning products were selected immediately. The remaining slots were filled by students through a competitive process."

To be eligible for the trip, students had to submit a resume, their GPA, and a one-page statement of why they wanted to attend "Warren Buffett for a Day." The students also had to be able to pay their own way.

"To determine which students would attend the event, we developed a rubric of specific factors that we were looking for when making a decision on who would attend," he adds. The rubric had the variables of GPA, the one-page written statement, service to others, and examples of leadership.

One of the companies the students will tour, Nebraska Furniture Mart, was started by Rose Blumkin, a Jewish Russian immigrant. She grew the company into the largest independent furniture store in the U.S. and, Finkle says, sold it to Buffett on a handshake in the 1980s.

Finkle says Buffett likes to buy companies that are family owned, and he usually buys about 75 to 80 percent of the company, leaving 20 percent to 25 percent to the family and keeping management in place.

"The student will get a tour from the grandson of the founder, Mrs. B., and they'll learn about how to start up a company, how to grow it, manage it, and eventually sell it," Finkle says.

He says the students also can glean much business knowledge from the main attraction, Buffett, whom he says looks to invest in well-run companies that incorporate ingenuity, integrity, and value.

Buffett pays just for the students' lunches, but their small investment to hear him talk will last a lifetime, Finkle adds.

"One key that's important is the way he's so well-rounded," Finkle says. "He tells the students, like he did in 2009, that the most important decision you'll make in your life is who you marry."

Finkle says his favorite Buffett saying is, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently."

Finkle adds that Buffett has done it the right way. "He's done it honestly and with integrity," he says. "Integrity is the most important thing you have in business."