He eventually found fulfillment teaching high school science and Japanese, but at a fraction of his former salary. These days he runs a nonprofit group called Smoke-Free Kids, which he largely funds himself from his consulting and appearance fees. The organization helps governments develop campaigns aimed at dissuading teens from lighting up. "I'm dedicated to derailing the industry's future revenue stream," Wigand says.   

Wigand says he realizes most whistleblowers aren't as lucky as him in finding their way to gainful and fulfilling employment. "Sheer determination kept me from winding up in the trash can," Wigand observes. "For me, these years have been a path of reinvention."   

Like Wigand, Peter Rost has found new ways to cause trouble for his old adversaries. As a $600,000-a-year vice president of marketing at pharma giant Pfizer in the early 2000s, Rost didn't shy away from alerting higher-ups to deceptive marketing involving a human growth hormone the company was selling. "They reacted very negatively and immediately started to isolate me," he recalls. "I knew what was coming." Feeling he had nothing to lose, he went public, was fired, and eventually brought a suit against the company.

"I knew, of course, that I'd never work in my industry again," Rost says. "But I thought it'd be easy to get a different kind of job in another area, maybe working for the government or a think tank." Instead, the 49-year-old learned that it "doesn't matter where you are, people keep their distance." Rost's employers took every opportunity to "bad-mouth" him, he says, adding that "only the newspapers applaud whistleblowers."

Rost eventually managed to take advantage of his fame by landing a column writing about drug-company marketing for Brandweek, and later at the Huffington Post. Rost, who trained as a physician in his native Sweden, eventually started a blog that acts as a vehicle for other pharmaceutical insiders with tales to tell to come forward. "There's more than one way to expose the crooks," says Rost. "It's not like I'm out to change the world anymore—I'm just trying to keep these guys in their place." But he's not exactly earning his Pfizer-level salary.

Unlike Rost, Enron's Watkins still struggles to redefine herself seven years after first coming forward. "I'd like to be busier," she concedes. "I'd like to be doing more training on corporate governance issues."

And she'd rather be known for something other than her role in bringing down Enron. "I get tired of rehashing my version of 'Stairway to Heaven' for the thousandth time," she says. And the sense that she can't be trusted prevails. "I can be hired as a consultant to give advice and such," she observes, "but I find that nothing much is shared with me."

Watkins cautions other potential whistleblowers about "glamorizing" the experience. "The book deal, the lecture circuit—that stuff happens once in a blue moon," Watkins says.

"I never counsel anyone to be a truth-to-power teller," she adds. "It rarely works. If our system is so broken that we continue to rely on a few people, then something much larger is wrong."  

This article has been updated from an earlier version to clarify Sherron Watkins's decisions at Enron.