A study has been carried out to investigate the formation mechanism and development of streamwise vortices induced by leading edge tubercles in a high speed compressor cascade. The preliminary assessment of the cascade performance in terms of the total pressure loss coefficient shows that the loss reduction is achieved at high incidence angles. A smaller wavelength leads to higher additional losses at the design point, but gives rise to a greater loss reduction at high incidence angles. The modified cascade with a tubercle wavelength of 4% chord achieves the maximum loss reduction of 36.1% at i = 10◦, as well as the stall angle improvement of 27.6%. The formation mechanism of streamwise vortices is elaborated on the basis of the streamwise vorticity equation, in which the streamwise turning terms may be responsible for the generation of streamwise vortices. Slices of streamwise vorticity at various streamwise locations, combined with vorticity strength distributions, have been presented to study the development of streamwise vortices. The counter-rotating vortices are divided into the crest-induced streamwise vortices (CSVs) and trough-induced streamwise vortices (TSVs). A streamwise vortex pair formed from a part of the CSV sheets behind troughs, is gradually entrained by the TSV pair along the streamwise direction. In addition, the tubercles with a smaller wavelength result in higher streamwise vorticity strength with which the streamwise vortices interact with the flow separation more sufficiently and delay the separation to a greater extent.