The poster by frangke has touched the points. I feel this would be a difficult situation to handle and I still donot have the best solution. Here, just share my own experience.

Several years ago, when I was a postdoct in the US I came out a relatively big idea. I talked with my supervisor and he immediately said that if this works all would be your credit. Of course, I wouldnot take it seriously, but I did hope he would share the credit with me. I tested it and it turned out as I expected. The result is significant and means that we have found a real mechanism for a scientific problem outside our field, for which three scientists had received Nobel Prize a few years ago. I wrote the paper and gave it to my supervisor. Then a big problem appeared. My boss did not want to publish it and from then I also lost the chance of attending conference (usually our whole group attended two big conferences a year before this event). I felt quite frustrated, but couldn't do anything. By the end of the year, I went to attend an Evangelistic Christian camp (by that time I have become a Christian). My faith did make me easier in my life. After I came back from the camp in the new year, I found that there was one paper published in the topmost journal in our field on Dec 28, XXXX. Although the paper addresses a different topic, the result is very similar to what we had seen and the paper also came from an internationally well-known group. I just simply made a copy of the paper and gave it to my boss. Of course, he then couldn't be more eager to publish the paper. Five months later, the paper was published in the same topmost journal in my field. But I was still not released for attending any conferences. Later the year, he did allow me to attend a not so important conference, but I gave up to him. What I didn't expect is that he had a press conference for our result. When the reporter wanted to publish his news article, the reporter realized that there was something wrong. I am the first author of the two papers mentioned in the report, but there was no mention of my contribution at all in the news report. The reporter took a wise way so that I received his preprint and let my boss know that I already know the preprint. My boss asked me "what you wanted to do". I said to him that I didn't hope you would give me all the credit, but I didn't expect you would kill all my contribution either. Then he made some changes in the preprint and showed me the revised preprint, in which he and I proposed the idea and I conducted the expts. By that time I already realized this might not the final version of the news report. I asked the reporter to send me the final version, but he ask for my forgiveness, saying that he did not closed his eye in the past 48 hours. As I guessed, the news report was published with the dexxxxion that "Working with XXX(me), XXX (my boss) proposed...". Two months later, I told him that I would be leaving from his group in one month and the reason why I decided to leave. Thanks to God, I was rarely offered a postdoc position without any letters of recommendation, even though my new boss had been his friend. Second year, I published another important paper on the topic with my second postdoc boss. I did get an invited talk about the finding in a large international conference, but I xxxxted the abstract with both supervisors as co-authors. I have learned from this process:

(1) As a student or postdoc, it is not wise to fight with your supervisor. Although I have become an "independent" faculty member, I still need to get letters of recommendation from my xxxxer supervisors from time to time.

(2)As a supervisor it is not wise either to be too selfish and to remove the credit for your students or postdocts, though it is very common in the scientific community nowadays. I have stoped working on the scientific problem mentioned above directly and changed to a different exciting field for a couple of years. My two xxxxer supervisors have been intensely studied the topic for many years, but it have been very hard to shake the widely accepted old theory dominated by the three Nobel laureates. There are some critical obstacles needed to remove, which may be not known by my xxxxer supervisors.

(3)I still do not have a best answer to the question raised by the original poster. For myself, I became an "independent" investigator after completing my third postdoc position if you define "tenure-track" as "independent".

By the way, I should mention that my first postdoct supervisor has been widely recognized as a very nice and highly respected gentleman and supervisor in the US. I agree that he indeed deserves the reputation, except in the news report. He still gets my high respect at the bottom of my heart.

Gook luck and Blessings to every one,

A seeker