>(I'm new to VFP). I'm trying to figure out how to select a field (ie. Cust_ID) into a variable (ie. nNext_ID), without opening a browse window. Currently, doing a command like 'select cust_id as next_id from ids' does indeed get me the information I need, but opens a browse window; therefor requiring manual input from the console to continue.
>
>Any suggestions?

select myfield ... into array myArray

Now you'd get an array with one column, each member would be one value of myfield from your table. If you retrieve only one record, your result will be in myArray[1].