BRIGHTON RESERVATION -- The school would make any parent drool. Shiny new laptops. Lessons on iPods. Handpicked teachers. Even a cafeteria with the sleek lines of a Starbucks.

But this top-of-the-line elementary school isn't located in Weston or Pinecrest or some other well-heeled bit of suburbia. The Pemayetv Emahakv Charter School is on the Seminole Tribe's Brighton Reservation, deep in Florida cattle country, northwest of Lake Okeechobee.

For the Seminoles, proprietors of a gambling empire that includes the Hard Rock chain, this is the school that slot machines built. It's steel-and-concrete proof of how far they've come -- from dismal poverty to great wealth in less than three decades -- and where they plan to go.

Students at the school, which opened in August and cost $10 million to build, are learning how to navigate the 21st century while still retaining their culture. So in one classroom, children learn language arts -- by podcast. Down the hall, others recite words in Creek, the Seminoles' language. Outside, just beyond the school's fence, cattle graze.

Max B. Osceola Jr., Tribal Council representative for the Hollywood reservation, sketched out the tribe's path in a few short sentences during the school's dedication ceremony in October.

''Our elders taught us life skills -- how to hunt and when to plant,'' he said. ``Today we're in the 21st century. The Seminoles have gone beyond the four corners of our reservations. Today we have businesses around the world -- and who's going to run these businesses?''

He turned to the children in the audience, dressed for the occasion in colorful and intricate tribal clothing: ``You and you and you.''

Investing in the next generation was a logical step for a 3,200-member tribe that has seen its gambling empire revenues soar to an estimated $1 billion-plus a year, largely from its seven casinos in Florida. But even as the school provides children from the reservation and nearby communities with an education in the tech-savvy ways of the outside world, tribal leaders are intent on keeping their children rooted in tradition.

''Educating our people is very important to us, but equally important is keeping our language and culture,'' said Louise Gopher, educational director of the tribe and driving force behind the school. 'They're not getting it at home, and they certainly weren't getting it at school. We're teaching the parents, too. When the kids bring home worksheets, a lot of the grandmas are getting calls at night, `How do you spell that? How do I say this?' So everyone's learning.''

KEY TO SURVIVAL

Gopher, who in 1970 became the first Seminole woman to graduate from college with a four-year degree, says keeping the Creek language alive is essential to tribal survival. ''Without the language, we have no tribe,'' she said.

The Seminoles' financial rise began in 1979 with high-stakes bingo games followed, years later, by bingo-style slot machines. This year, after buying the Hard Rock chain for $965 million, the tribe entered negotiations with the state to expand its gambling operations. It hopes to offer Las Vegas-style slot machines and table games such as baccarat and blackjack. In exchange, the state could get at least $100 million a year from gambling revenues.

Though its casinos include the high-profile Hard Rock hotels near Hollywood and Tampa, the tribe does not pay state taxes because it is a sovereign nation.

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