Pete, Thanks very much for your help. It works but now there are two
problems:
There is a box symbol after the < sign and the result has 12 decimal
places -- I want only 2.

Here is my data:
N17 14.58
N19 <14.58
N21 14.58
N23 87.46
N25 43.73


=IF(OR(LEFT(N17,1)="<",LEFT(N19,1)="<",LEFT(N21,1) ="<",LEFT(N23,1)="<",LEFT(N25,1)="<"),"<
","")&
AVERAGE(IF(N17:N25="","",IF(LEFT(N17:N25)="<",VALU E(RIGHT(N17:N25,LEN(N17:N25)-1)),N17:N25)))


The results shows <[ ]34.9859....etc. Note the "box" after the < sign
has lines on four sides.

Thanks,
Mike