Factors that influence the length of time between receipt of the doctorate and award of tenure for college faculty were investigated. Data were collected from 293 responses to questionnaires returned by doctoral recipients from Stanford University, Yale University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Respondents had received doctorates in 1963-1965 or 1970-1972 in anthropology, biology, economics, English, history, philosophy, political science, psychology, or sociology. The length of time to achieve tenure was analyzed from several perspectives: (1) observed time to tenure for respondents who received tenure; (2) estimated time to tenure including "censored" data from those still working toward tenure and those who left the tenure track, using survival analysis; (3) testing the significance of variables related to time to tenure, using the Cox proportional hazards regression model, and (4) investigating individual cases of respondents who had unusually long periods between receiving the Ph.D. and being awarded tenure and of those who were still working toward tenure. The career and family patterns of faculty who were still seeking tenure were assessed. More than 90% of respondents originally began academic careers; by 1983 78% of these men and 62% of these women had been awarded tenure. (SW)