Why can't my iPhone access the Wi-Fi from my laptop?

I'm living in a college dorm with ethernet cables as my only source for internet. I just turned my Windows 7 laptop into a Wi-Fi hotspot so that I could access Wi-Fi with my iPhone. When I try to do so, the Wi-Fi name that I created shows up as an option, but when I enter the password, it says it is unable to join. Why?

You got to acct your laptope in to you router.

There's a possibility you didn't configure the connection right, because laptops usually can't produce a wireless connection. You would need an actual router for that to work, like this one on amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/...006C1U8EE/