Leona Lewis was probably learning to walk the last time a British female singer topped the charts in the United States. With Bleeding Love, a throbbing Celine Dion-meets-Mariah Carey track, the 22-year-old Lewis became the first English artist since Kim Wilde (1987) to hit number one on Billboard's Hot 100 chart.

A graduate of the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology, Lewis became a star after winning The X-Factor, the British counterpart of "American Idol," in 2006. Simon Cowell, producer of both "Idol" and "X-Factor," teamed up with veteran music mogul Clive Davis (Whitney Houston, Kelly Clarkson) to sign the bi-racial beauty to a reported $9 million, five-album deal with Sony BMG.

Last year, Lewis made her United Kingdom debut with A Moment Like This, a Kelly Clarkson cover matched with a nearly identical music video. The single went on to sell over one million copies while her debut album, Spirit, went platinum six times over.

Simon Cowell is banking on Lewis to match those numbers in the U.S. when Spirit makes its American debut tomorrow. After a co-sign from Oprah Winfrey boosted the sales of "Bleeding Love," the often cynical Cowell was suprisingly optimistic about her chances: "The amazing thing is I would say that 98 percent of people in America still don't know who Leona Lewis is."