I've been in Japan for 13 years, and I can't claim to be fully proficient in kanji even now. But my progress has speeded up over the past two years. Let me explain.
The "correct" way to learn Japanese reading is to attend courses, study the kanji, and read progressively graded texts. But most adults don't have time for that, since they already have demanding jobs and may have families to support. In addition, most graded texts are aimed at elementary students, not exactly the sort of thing to hold an adult's attention. Most adults already have interests, and are most motivated to read if they can read about the subjects that interest them or that are required in their professions. But kanji are so very tedious to look up that one can easily squander an hour on a short paragraph. This is the hurdle that must be overcome.
Two years ago I discovered the software "Read Japanese" (RJ). If the Japanese text is computerized (i.e. email or web pages) one simply copies the text and pastes it into the Read Japanese window. Click on any kanji, and it will come up with the possible readings and meanings, starting with the longest kanji combination it recognizes as a word. The program is *not* translation software, and fails miserably at picking words out of hiragana, so it is not very useful for the abject beginner. Nevertheless, it allows those with some Japanese experience to tackle texts that would otherwise be far beyond their grasp. In addition it has various bells and whistles, such as the ability to generate kanji study lists. The feature I've found most useful is the ability to integrate additional dictionaries, as I have used one generated for biology by the Life Science Dictionary project (Yeah, I know the acronym is "LSD", but it's nevertheless a studious undertaking).
The price for the program is $149, although you can get it for $99 if you are able to fax them an ID showing that you are a student of faculty member. Unfortunately, RJ is available only for PCs and not Macintosh, and last time I checked, there were no plans to port it beyond PCs. So I am out of luck on my home computer. But I use it almost everyday at work, where numerous emails in Japanese enter my mailbox. It is a real life-saver for me, and has definitely improved my ability to recognize kanji elsewhere, because now I actually get practical experience reading Japanese text.
If you want to check it out, a demo version of RJ can be downloaded from their web site at:
http://www.basistech.com/rj/
The URL for the Life Science Dictionary project is
http://lsd.pharm.kyoto-u.ac.jp/
I have no connection to Basis Technology, the creator of RJ, and am still miffed with them that they don't support the Macintosh.
Hope this information is useful.