Hello Ria.

But when I move from form1 to form2, eventhough the row source for the combobox, which is a table, points to the correct record, the id for the student is not diplayed

I take it that the combo box is not a bound control, that it is used solely to navigate through the table that is its RowSource. If so, just set the combo's Value to the appropriate field in its RowSource in Form #2's Init like this:

Thisform.cboStudentID.Value = MyAlias.MyField

Of course, this assumes that Form #2 uses the default data session and, therefore, shares form #1's data.