A field within a record, which I will call the TICK field, can have over 500 different values.

I would like to "combo box" the field, but I don't want to have to type in several characters into the combo field to get the results I'm seeking.

What I would like to do is "split" the field by first accessing the first character of the TICK field in Combo Box No 1, and then in Combo Box 2 take the results of Combo Box No 1 and drill down further.  The advantage is that having typed say A in the first Combo Box 1, I can then visually see all the records that start with A in the TICK field.

The 'dirty' solution would be to add another field to the table, which would be the first character of the TICK field, but I would like to keep the underlying table lean and mean.

To date, I can't see how I can take the information generated in Combo Box 1 and use it in Combo Box 2 unless I add an additional field to the underlying table.  I can't seem to tell Combo Box 2 how to look at say only values that start with the letter A by using the information generated in Combo Box 1.

A drowning man not knowing what he is talking about - could recordsets, which I know nothing about, be the solution?