Kevin,

>The only way I've ever been able to do this, is to insert an entry after I do the data binding:
>

>        this.cboMyPulldown.Items.Insert(0,"<Please make selection>");
>

There is another. :-) I just ran across this one last night -- you can declare a default list item at the top of the list in design mode and then set the dropdown's AppendDataBoundItems property to True so it leaves your existing item there and adds the databound items after it. I have not yet tried programmatically adding a default item, setting the property and then databinding, but it would probably work, too.