Upfront, I am quite new to Visual Basic. My question: How can I "pass" or reference a simple string variable across 2 forms. I start my main form with: Public Class Interface Public Namevar As String Now then, I want to fire up a subform, SubSearch with a button click. So: Private Sub SearchRun_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles SearchRun.Click SubSearch.Show() End Sub So far so good. However, I want to use Namevar within SubSearch. Since I initially declared Namevar as Public, I thought it's value would be available in my Subform. But everything I have tried has failed. Any help will be appreciated. Jim