What does it mean to be an accredited investor?

There are no disadvantages to being an accredited investor. It gives you more options as to what you can invest in if you're a citizen of the US or Canada.

The Wikipedia article has good information, as you might expect.

In very broad strokes, for US individuals to be accredited investors they must be wealthy: demonstrated income of $200,000/year (or $300,000/year for a married couple), or more than $1 million net worth.

The "party line" for having an accredited investor class is to save the masses from the con men and place them into investments that have more regulation and more disclosures required.

The last criterion in the Wikipedia article (original source):

a trust with assets in excess of $5 million, not formed to acquire the securities offered, whose purchases a sophisticated person makes.

might suggest that non-accredited investors are not sophisticated enough to understand certain types of investments. Though this might be true for some, it's also true that some wealthy people don't understand them either.

It's also true that some people who fall under the income thresholds understand them very well, and could profit handsomely if they were actually allowed to invest in them. But the criteria are based on money in the bank, not breadth of knowledge. Hence, one might think that the rules were set up not to protect "the little guy" but to reduce competition from tens of millions of little guys who want to buy the investments that the big boys want.

Anyway :) so no, there are no disadvantages to being an accredited investor.

How do you become one? Make lots of money on AskAboutGadgets.com or marry a rich woman. ;)