"This is what dreams are made of, people," said Wallenda, who wore a microphone for the broadcast, shortly after he stepped off from a platform on the American shore.

Along the way, he calmly prayed aloud. After passing the halfway mark, Wallenda expressed fatigue. "I'm strained, I'm drained," he said. "This is so physical, not only mental but physical."

Toward the end, as he neared the Canadian shore, Wallenda dropped to one knee and pumped his fist while the spectators cheered. He broke into a playful run about 15 feet from the finish line, where his wife and three children waited.

"I am so blessed," he said later. "How blessed I am to have the life that I have."

ABC televised the walk and insisted Wallenda use a tether to keep him from falling in the river. Wallenda said he agreed because he wasn't willing to lose the chance to perform the walk it took him well over a year to win permission from two countries to do. Such stunts are normally illegal. ABC's sponsorship helped offset some of the $1.3 million cost of the spectacle.

Wallenda said he thought about the tether, which was secured at his waist and dragged behind him, at several points along the 30-minute walk but wasn't hindered by it as he'd feared.

"Awesome! The whole thing is awesome," 8-year-old William Clements of Dresden, Ontario, said after watching the walk with his family from the Canadian side, adding he wouldn't want to walk "even over something not high."

"He was meant to do it. The weather was perfect," said Glenda Rutherford of Ontario. "It was amazing."

For Wallenda, who has grown up on the high wire and holds six Guinness records for various stunts, the Niagara Falls walk was unlike anything he'd ever done. Because it was over water, the 2-inch wire didn't have the usual stabilizer cables to keep it from swinging. Pendulum anchors were designed to keep it from twisting under the elkskin-soled shoes designed by his mother.