Given these three files, loading precompile.lisp does not work successfully:

;;---------------
;;precompile.lisp
;;---------------
(eval-when (:compile-toplevel :load-toplevel :execute)
  (compile-file "compile.lisp"))

;;------------
;;compile.lisp
;;------------
(eval-when (:compile-toplevel :load-toplevel :execute)
  (compile-file "broken.lisp"))

;;-----------
;;broken.lisp
;;-----------
(eval-when (:compile-toplevel :load-toplevel :execute)
  (print "***** Bootstrapping ***"))

>(load "precompile.lisp")

Loading precompile.lisp
Compiling compile.lisp.
The compiler was called recursively.
Cannot compile broken.lisp.
The compiler was called recursively.
Cannot compile broken.lisp.
End of Pass 1.
End of Pass 2.
OPTIMIZE levels: Safety=0 (No runtime error checking), Space=0, Speed=3, (Debug quality ignored)
Finished compiling compile.lisp.
Finished loading precompile.lisp
T

I first checked if this was ANSI defined code on comp.lang.lisp and Barry Margolin responded that "There's nothing in the language spec that mentions any restrictions on the expressions used within an EVAL-WHEN :COMPILE-TOPLEVEL. So COMPILE and COMPILE-FILE should be usable."

Reference: <http://groups.google.co.nz/groups?selm=pan.2005.04.23.09.35.00.163520%40consulting.net.nz>

Regards,
Adam Warner