>The disappointing thing is that MSAccess (even the old version 2) can do exactly that without doing anything fancy. Oh well, their are still LOTS of things I like better about Foxpro. But why have an incremental search feature on a combo box if it only works on a list box?

Because the one mode of cbo forces selection from an existing list, the other mode (the default for the control) allows new entries. Did you try just putting code in the KeyPress method? That way you don't need a timer, it just executes as the enter each key, kind of like QuickFill from Quicken data fields.