This can be done a number of ways. Keep your ear to the office grapevine. Extend feelers to professional associations and to friends at other companies to find out the salaries for folks in positions similar to yours.

The Web is a treasure trove of anonymous salary information, too. Salary.com provides charts of what people in your job make within your zip code: Here, you can get an instant picture of how your check stacks up against those of field hands laboring in neighboring vineyards. Payscale.com also lists the pay range for tons of different jobs, but you’ll have to fill out an anonymous questionnaire with information about your own salary, location, years in your field, etc., before you can find out where you stand.

Step two:

Ask for a meeting with your boss, then go in armed.

You should be prepared to point out not just how you’re underpaid relative to other people in your field, but what you’ve contributed to your employer’s bottom line.

In advance of the meeting, prepare a one-page paper documenting how your salary is not competitive. This letter should also detail all your significant contributions to your firm: Perhaps you’ve sped up claims processing, thereby saving the company money, or sold more widgets than anyone else in your division, thereby increasing profits.

“Employers hire on skills and fire on attitude,” notes Diane McCurdy, president of McCurdy Financial Planning, Inc., so it’s important to take a cordial, collegial tone in documenting your skills and in addressing your manager.

Step three:

Make a clear request.

Put on paper, “I’m asking for a $3 to $5 an hour raise,” or “for $5,000 to $8,000 a year.” Citing a range of figures makes it harder for your boss to say “no,” says TV financial expert Suze Orman, author of Women and Money. “You really have to believe you deserve more money” in order to get it, she continues. “When you undervalue what you do, the world under values who you are. Don’t say, ‘Can I have a $5,000 a year raise?’ Say, ‘I know I deserve this. I’m asking for a $5,000 to $8,000 a year raise.’?”

Step four:

Come up with a plan B.

If your manager pleads poverty and insists the company can’t afford to boost your salary, counter with, “Then what can you do for me?” and push for more paid vacation, flex time or something else you value. If you don’t get what you need within six months, start looking for another job, says Orman. But don’t quit the one you have in a huff.

And if you can’t bust out of a low-wage rut, and you’re feeling courageous, try to “parlay your experience into something entrepreneurial,” suggests Jennifer Openshaw, author of The Millionaire Zone. Analyze your special skills and talents (baking great cookies, knitting sweaters, renovating houses) and “turn your passion into profits,” she exhorts. A good way to start is to identify unmet needs in your community (elder care, a snack van, personal shopping). Then, leverage your aptitudes into a higher-paying private gig: If you’re a boffo waitress, for example, you may want to open a temp agency for restaurant personnel.