Where can you find them? Start by looking at which stocks performed the best over the past 10 years. Here are 25 -- and the keys to finding the next generation.

Stocks, as I have said too many times to count, are meant to be long-term investments. So one challenge for investors is to figure out which companies will perform best over, say, the next 10 years. But how?

A good way to start is to look at past performance, so I asked the number crunchers at Morningstar to calculate which stocks had gained the most over the past 10 years. I limited the search to stocks that trade on U.S. exchanges and have a market capitalization of at least $1 billion.

Of the top 25, five are energy companies, four are health care stocks, three are in the chemical sector and two in metals,...