  As-grown topological insulators (TIs) are typically heavily-doped $n$-type
crystals. Compensation by acceptors is used to move the Fermi level to the
middle of the band gap, but even then TIs have a frustratingly small bulk
resistivity. We show that this small resistivity is the result of band bending
by poorly screened fluctuations in the random Coulomb potential. Using
numerical simulations of a completely compensated TI, we find that the bulk
resistivity has an activation energy of just 0.15 times the band gap, in good
agreement with experimental data. At lower temperatures activated transport
crosses over to variable range hopping with a relatively large localization
length.
