>I have combed the texts available to me. There are no examples that seem to fit my situation as most are pulling the from cursors created by sql statements as a command in the dataenvironment rather than looking directly into an existing table.
>

I you can access data this way. You need a recordset. A recordset can be created using a command (like what you read) or directly by code:

Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim rstData As ADODB.Recordset
Dim tmpcmnd As String

'Open the connection
dbfDataEnv.dbfConn.Open

Set rstData = New ADODB.Recordset
rstData.ActiveConnection = dbfDataEnv.dbfConn
rstData.Open "Select * from cmdlist"

tmpcmnd = rstData!cmnd
rstData.Close
Set rstData = Nothing
End Sub