Homer Smith (Sidney Potier) is an unemployed construction worker and ex-GI who is traveling through the desert in search of employment. When he stops at a well in a nunnery to refill his overheating station wagon, he meets Mother Maria (Lilia Skala), Sister Gertrude (Lisa Mann), Sister Agnes (Isa Crino), Sister Albertine (Francesca Jarvis), and Sister Elizabeth (Pamela Branch). Having escaped from postwar Berlin, the nuns intend to build a church, but are stymied by their lack of funds, so they ask Homer for his help.