Electron Degeneracy Pressure and the Pauli Exclusion Principle
Basically, the Pauli exclusion principle says that two fermions (in this case, electrons) can't be in the same quantum state. To expand: No two electrons in an atom can share the same numbers for their four quantum numbers, properties that help describe the state of a particle. What are quantum numbers? The important consequence here is that no two electrons can have the same spin and energy level.

In a white dwarf or a neutron star, the fermions are packed very close together, and there's quite a lot of force due to gravity. However, the exclusion principle triumphs. Fermions near each other must have different energy levels; this leads to energy differences and degeneracy pressure pressure, which counteracts the force of gravity. Above a certain mass limit (the Chandrasekhar limit, roughly $\sim1.40M_{\odot}$), electron degeneracy pressure is no longer sufficient; the white dwarf collapses to a neutron star. There appears to be a similar limit for neutron stars, where neutron degeneracy pressure cannot support the remnant against gravity, and it collapses into a black hole.