The VAL() function doesn't care about leading zeros. What you see is display problem not result of conversion. You may want to wrap it into INT() if decimal part is not desired.

? VAL('00203')      && 203.00
? INT(VAL('00203'))     && 203

>Am doing data conversions with VFP 9.
>
>Need to strip leading zero (or zeros) from a character field (and ONLY leading zeros), then convert to a numeric.
>
>VAL('00203') returns 23 instead of the desired 203
>VAL('2098') returns 298 instead of the desired 2098
>VAL('0298') returns the desired 298 ...
>
>Can't help thinking that I am missing something, somewhere.
>
>Thoughts much appreciated.
>
>Best,
>
>Harold ...