BLACKSBURG -- Not many people in the world can dance the way Carol Crawford Smith did.

She's danced in "A Streetcar Named Desire" on PBS; "The Firebird" at the Kennedy Center; and "Creole Giselle" on CBS, among others.

Even fewer have had such a career in a field that has long been the province of white dancers.

But Smith is a fighter, whether she's fighting stereotypes or multiple sclerosis.

Just out of high school in 1978, Smith joined the Dance Theatre of Harlem, founded by Arthur Mitchell, the first black dancer to join the New York City Ballet.

Smith danced as a soloist with the prestigious Harlem troupe for 10 years on stages in London, Paris, Japan, Australia and the former Soviet Union.

Then she retired from the world of professional dance to go to college and have a family.

She came to Blacksburg in 1991 to direct the newly opened Black Cultural Center at Virginia Tech.

Barbara Pendergrass, a retired Tech dean, was on the committee that hired Smith and has remained a friend.

"We just knew this is the person. She had so much positive energy," Pendergrass recalled.

Smith designed the interior of the center and made it a welcoming place for students. And she encouraged the community to bring in original artwork to be displayed in the center, giving a lot of exposure to local talent, Pendergrass said.

But Smith missed dance and so started a school of her own in a studio on Draper Road in downtown Blacksburg in 1994.

A year later, she left her job at Tech to devote herself to community arts again.

In a newspaper interview in 2000, Smith recounted the moment she realized how much dancing meant to her.

She had slipped off a balance beam during a high school gymnastics class and sprained her ankle so badly that she had to give up her ballet classes for a time.

"I thought I'd never dance again," Smith said in 2000. "Just the thought of not dancing, not being able to wear pointe shoes, was devastating."

About five years ago, Smith started experiencing symptoms of MS.

Ann Kilkelly, a tap dancer and theater professor at Virginia Tech, has heard Smith talk about her accomplishments and her struggles. She's worked with Smith on performances and arts projects.

And she's watched over the past five years as MS has robbed Smith of her ability to dance and now threatens her ability to walk.

MS is thought to be an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system -- including the brain, spinal cord and nerves in the eyes -- creating coordination and movement problems for those afflicted by it.

But Smith kept going, collaborating on projects with Kilkelly and others, and donating her time to other community work.

She's continued to teach the many students who attend classes at her dance studio, where she battles her way up a stairwell for the classes and instructs from a chair with help from an assistant.

"She kept teaching. She still paints, too. She sings. She's a great choreographer. There are all kinds of ways to be in the dance world," Kilkelly said.

But it's harder to find creative ways to climb concrete steps to get in the front door of Smith's 1950s-era house.

And the illness has made it nearly impossible for her to navigate a basement stairwell to do the laundry generated by two young sons, Hunter and Garland.

"The house was what was wrong," ABC producer Diane Korman said.

So the show's crew decided to fix it.

Over the next few days, about a thousand volunteers, including professional builders and tradespeople, will work with crews from "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" to build Smith a new house.

She will tour her new home Sunday, after she returns from an all-expense-paid vacation to La Jolla, Calif.