>I have a dropdown list with rowsoucetype alias (based on a local view). The view is requeried in the interactivechange of another combo, meaning the records are not available at the controls init.
>I would like for the user to see the first value in the list when it is populated in the combobox control as other values on the screen are already populated with info from the same record. I have tried setting value and displayvalue but cannot get it to display.
>Can this be done when rowsourcetype is alias or fields?

You should go to rowsource :
Select view1
move pointer to the first record:
Go top
and set combo value:
Thisform.Combo1.Value=view1.field1