I'm not sure of the title, because I'm not sure the issue comes from the "copyablility" of my container. I tryied quite everything but I can't get rid of this error. Here is a simplified version of my code (please do not challenge the class design, I really would like to keep the end-used syntax in the BOOST_FOREACH): template <typename T> class MyContainer { public: typedef typename std::vector<T>::iterator iterator; typedef typename std::vector<T>::const_iterator const_iterator; MyContainer(std::vector<T>& vec, boost::mutex& mutex) : m_vector(vec), m_lock(mutex) { } iterator begin() { return m_vector.begin(); } const_iterator begin() const { return m_vector.begin(); } iterator end() { return m_vector.end(); } const_iterator end() const { return m_vector.end(); } private: std::vector<T>& m_vector; boost::lock_guard<boost::mutex> m_lock; }; template <typename T> struct GetContainer { GetContainer(std::vector<T>& vec, boost::mutex& mutex) : m_vector(vec), m_mutex(mutex) { } MyContainer<T> Get() { return MyContainer<T>(m_vector, m_mutex); } std::vector<T>& m_vector; boost::mutex& m_mutex; }; int main() { std::vector<int> v; v.push_back(1); v.push_back(2); boost::mutex m; GetContainer<int> getter(v, m); BOOST_FOREACH(int i, getter.Get()) { std::cout << i << std::endl; } return 0; } The compiler complains about not having a copy constructor for MyContainer<int>::MyContainer(const MyContainer<int>&) I also have : error: no matching function for call to ‘MyContainer<int>::MyContainer(boost::foreach_detail_::rvalue_probe<const MyContainer<int> >::value_type)’ I follow the extensibility tips: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_58_0/doc/html/foreach/extensibility.html#for... But, making MyContainer<T> : private boost::noncopyable doesn't solve the issue. Nor defining the function boost_foreach_is_noncopyable or specializing the template struct is_noncopyable for MyContainer<int> (in fact, how would I specialize this template for a template type ?) Last "tip": If I remove the mutex and the lock from everywhere (I just pass the vector to GetContainer and to MyContainer<T>, it works. But it doesn't work if I make MyContainer<T> : private boost::noncopyable (I expected it should, so I'm not sure my problem is with BOOST_FOREACH, but maybe because I return a copy of MyContainer with my getter ?) I thank you if you read me until here, and thanks in advance for help.