>If the DLL (ATL COM) is not declared and thus not in memory how does VFP access the functions within the DLL?
>
>For example, I have a COM DLL called NameParse.dll which contains a function called GetName(char name, char* retval) how would I use newobject() or createobject()?

oNameParse = createobject('class') && class is the class defined in your DLL
cVar = oNameParse.GetName(param1, param2)

After you create your COM DLL, you need to run regsvr32 on it to register it. When VFP runs createobject() or newobject(), one of the things it searches is the registry to find the name of the class. It will find it and the registry entry will tell it what and where the DLL is to load that class.