Thanks Craig for responding
I tried the temp cursor method but ran into essentially the same problem. I can sort the table on my description field (the field which the user views) by just changing the index in the gotfocus of the combo and changing it back in the lostFocus of the combo, but the problem occurs when the controlSource is updated. Since the controlSource is an integer key field, vfp updates the controlSource with the listIndex if the index is not set to that field and it is an integer field. The "boundto" and boundColumn properties are supposed to remedy that problem, but when I use those I get the problem of a blank combo upon selection of an item and on edits. I also loose incremental search capability if the combo is not expanded. The behavior of this control is squirrelly and needs to be "tuned" by the vfp team

Thanks again, vince