Thanks to all who replied. I'm not sure, but I think the code problem had something to do with multitasking capabilities of NT. mlewis was right in that the controls should load before any code executes. but i think when the code is actually executed, some strands execute simultaneously (with checks of course to see if these strands affect each other). Here's how I fixed it, in case anyone else has this problem:

instead of just calling the method of the form to load it, ie. formOne.BuildList, do this-

'this will start the create a new instance
dim frmTwo as new formOne
'allow any events to fire that need to
doevents
'finally call method
frmTwo.BuildList

the funny thing is that this error didn't start to happen until after a data access routine (the two shouldn't be related in the least). again, thanks to all who responded.

-chuck