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Still, as a critical mass of corporate couples get further up the ladder, some are finding it's just too hard on their children to continue the dual-career high-wire act. Ursula Burns, an SVP at Xerox, says more and more women are wrestling with gender roles as high-powered jobs come within their reach. Anne Stevens says she knows of at least 20 women in her division at Ford whose husbands are home. At Coca-Cola, Madeline Hamill, vice president of worldwide strategic planning, says women come to her seeking advice. Will her arrangement work for them? (Her husband Paul quit work five years ago to stay home with their twins, now 10.)

These women are not who you think they are. Yes, they are tough and ambitious and competitive. But they are not ball-busters. And their husbands are not wimps. They are physicists, lawyers, engineers, marketing executives, and Navy pilots. These couples usually started out in even-steven, dual-career marriages. Most never imagined such role reversal; in fact, many of the women assumed their careers would take a back seat to their husbands'. "There was nothing in our setup that was in any way unconventional," says Dina Dublon. Twenty-five years ago she came to the U.S. from Israel as "the wife of" her physicist husband, who had a fellowship at Harvard. She took a leave of absence from her job in Israel and decided to pursue an MBA only out of boredom. "I had come to the States following my husband's career," she says.