Baseline's 2006 CIO compensation ranking shows that most of the 46 technology executives on the list got fatter wallets last year. Twenty-seven of them saw their total compensation increase in 2005 compared with 2004.

"The market's up and things are more competitive than they were last year," says Paul Groce, a partner at executive recruiting firm Christian & Timbers. "For chief executives and boards to attract world-class CIOs, they need to understand good CIOs are not inexpensive and they're hard to find," adds Groce, who specializes in placing senior technology leaders.

The top 10 collectively last year earned $50 million, led by $10.3 million man Randy Mott. Hewlett-Packard lured Mott away from his CIO post at Dell last year to help HP's new chief executive, Mark Hurd.

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Prashanth Rai