Actually, there are some extraneous "" in the prior post. Here's a corrected version: <dtml-in valid_prj> <dtml-call "REQUEST.set('val_prj_seq_item', _['sequence-item'][0])"> <OPTION value="&dtml-val_prj_seq_item;"><dtml-var val_prj_seq_item></OPTION> </dtml-in> I also should have mentioned that this approach allows use of the &dtml-x; "entity syntax", within tags..