Yum Brands is the quintessential American fast-food company, operating chains like Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. It's also a great emerging markets play. The Chinese love KFC--breakfast with the Colonel is a huge hit in Beijing. Pretax profits from the Louisville, Ky. firm's Chinese operations exceeded those of the U.S. parent by 18% in the first nine months of this year. Yum's Chinese profits are growing 30% annually. Restaurant margins hover around 24%, compared with 14.5% at home. China, in fact, is the engine that's driven up Yum's stock 44% this year.

Forget about buying shares in emerging markets companies and rolling the dice on their murky accounting and governance standards. Instead, consider tapping into the wealth being created abroad via big U.S. stocks like Yum (market cap: $24 billion), 3M ( MMM - news - people ) ($62 billion) and Cummins ( CMI - news - people ) ($19 billion).

"It's a valid strategy and one we emphasize," says UBS ( UBS - news - people ) strategist Thomas Doerflinger.

At Cummins, international sales through September rose to 64% of the total, up ten points in a year. It's seeing demand for mining gear and power plants in China, India and Brazil. President Thomas Linebarger noted on a recent analyst call that Cummins' sales to China and Brazil each rose more than 70% in the third quarter, leading it to predict a 100% increase in earnings before interest and taxes to $1.6 billion.

Sales to Asia and Latin America have also surged at 3M to one-third of its 2010 total from 16% a dozen years ago. Sales in China have more than tripled since 2003 to $1.4 billion, and 3M expects them to hit $3.1 billion by 2014, driven by demand for auto and mobile phone parts and abrasives. The company has exceeded analyst estimates for four consecutive quarters.

"Emerging markets exposure is one of the main factors that is helping them beat their numbers," says Doerflinger.

For the Standard & Poor's 500 itself, emerging markets now account for 13% of earnings. (Europe adds another 17%.) Revenues at 28 of the largest S&P 500 multinationals rose at a 14% annual rate outside of North America in the six years through 2008, UBS estimates, versus 6.2% in North America.

Semiconductors are a leading U.S. export, but that can be misleading since chips often return home in cellphones and other gadgets. Qualcomm ( QCOM - news - people ), for example, reports 94% of its sales are foreign; at Advanced Micro Devices ( AMD - news - people ) it's 87%.

"Semiconductor companies are shipping product to Asia, but it's going into a box and coming back," Doerflinger says.

In contrast, products of the basic-materials, industrial and technology companies in the table below are mostly consumed abroad. Corning ( GLW - news - people ) glass for liquid crystal displays increasingly goes into TVs in India and China. At 9.4 times next year's estimated earnings, Corning is cheaper than rivals like Sony ( SNE - news - people ) (18 times) and Panasonic (16 times).

Tyco Electronics ( TEL - news - people ) also reported 43% growth in Asian sales and 21% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in the nine months through June, as sales in the U.S. fell. Even Google ( GOOG - news - people ) is increasingly international. Its U.S. revenue grew 5.2% to $11.2 billion last year, versus a 17% gain to $9.5 billion abroad (excluding the U.K.). Expect much more of the same as a new generation of consumers in places like Indonesia and Vietnam uses its smartphones to Google the nearest KFC for breakfast.

#### Americans Abroad

Want to cash in on rapid economic growth overseas? these homegrown companies offer plenty of foreign exposure, plus the protection of u.s. stock listings.
|  | sales*
Company | Recent price | Total ($BIL) | international as % of total
Amazon.com | $168.47 | $24.5 | 48%
Coca-Cola | 61.95 | 31.0 | 74
Corning | 18.59 | 5.4 | 76
Cummins | 91.47 | 10.8 | 52
Google | 620.18 | 23.7 | 53
3M | 85.30 | 23.1 | 63
Yum Brands | 50.84 | 10.8 | 59
Prices as of Nov. 3. *Latest fiscal year-end. Source: Interactive Data and Thomson Reuters Fundamentals via FactSet Research Systems.