in participants table I have : FirstName, LastName and ParticipantName_tbl. in the participant form I set the code for participant name as: Me.ParticipantName.Value = Me.FirstName & " " & Me.LastName I have also created a query which accomplishes the name joining task. (fields in the query are: FirstName, LastName and ParticipantName_qry) I need the ParticipantName (the joined first and last names) to be in a combo box list in another form (form name: Results). in "Results" I have tried putting the control source as the name joining query. but it either lists all first names or all last names. not the joined names. how do I get it to display the joined names?. thnx in advance.

If I understand you correctly, you just want the combo box to display the first and last name as one column. The control source is the wrong place to put the syntax. It needs to go in the row source [firstName] & " " & [lastname]