According to a biography posted on a Web site connected with Speaker's law firm, the young lawyer attended the U.S. Naval Academy, graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in finance, then attended University of Georgia's law school. He is in private practice with his father, Ted Speaker, an unsuccessful candidate for a judgeship in 2004.

Andrew Speaker recently moved from an upscale condominium complex in anticipation of his wedding, former neighbors said. He also wrote in an application to become a board member of his condo association that he was going to Vietnam for five weeks as part of the Rotary Club to act as an ambassador.

His wife, Sarah, is a third-law law student at Atlanta's Emory University.

"He's a great guy. Gregarious," said Pam Hood, a former neighbor. "He's a wonderful guy. Just a very, very pleasant man."

Health officials in North America and Europe are now trying to track down about 80 passengers who sat near him on the two trans-Atlantic flights, and they want passenger lists from four shorter flights he took while in Europe.

However, other passengers are not considered at high risk of infection because tests indicated the amount of TB bacteria in Speaker was low, said Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC's division of global migration and quarantine.

Among those being tested are more than two dozen University of South Carolina Aiken students, school spokeswoman Jennifer Lake said. Two were apparently sitting near him, possibly in the same row, she said.

One of those students, Laney Wiggins, said she is awaiting her skin test results, expected Friday.

"I'm very nervous," Wiggins told The (Columbia) State newspaper. "It's kind of sad that this is overshadowing the wonderful time we had in Europe."

Speaker told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he wasn't coughing and that doctors initially did not order him not to fly and only suggested he put off his long-planned wedding. "We headed off to Greece thinking everything's fine," he told the newspaper.

Dr. Charles Daley, head of infectious disease at National Jewish Hospital, said the hospital has treated two other patients with what appears to be the same strain of TB since 2000. He said the patients had improved enough to be released.

"With drug-resistant tuberculosis, it's quite a challenge to treat this," Daley told CNN. "The cure rate that's been reported in other places is very low. It's about 30 percent for XDR-TB."

"This is a different patient, though. We're told that this is very early in the course, and most of the time when we get patients that it's very extensive and very far advanced. So I think we're more optimistic," he said. "We're aiming for cure. We know it's an uphill battle, but we hope to get there."

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On the Net:

CDC: www.cdc.gov

Public Health Agency of Canada: www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/

Associated Press writers Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington; Mike Stobbe and Daniel Yee in Atlanta; and Colleen Slevin in Denver contributed to this report.