Thermal leptogenesis in the canonical seesaw model in supersymmetry suffers from the incompatibility of a generic lower bound on the mass scale of the lightest right-handed neutrino and the upper bound on the reheating temperature of the universe after inflation. This is resolved by adding an extra singlet superfield, with a discrete Z2 symmetry, to the NMSSM (next to minimal supersymmetric standard model). This generic mechanism is applicable to any supersymmetric model for lowering the scale of leptogenesis. © 2007 IOP Publishing Ltd.