At a time when some of the biggest deals in technology make overnight billionaires out of 20-something startup founders, the story of Lynda Weinman’s success may come as a welcome counterweight.

A “mother of the Internet” and author of some of the earliest books on Web design, Ms. Weinman has spent two decades teaching scores of would-be Web experts through lynda.com, the e-learning site she co-founded with her husband, Bruce Heavin, in 1995.

...