Dedicated to Max:

Try this:

=SUM(INDIRECT(A2))

Note: this will not work if "northwest" is a dynamic named range.

Biff

"jgrogan" wrote in message
...
I named a group of cells "northwest" which contains sales data. I could
sum
the sales data with a formula =sum(northwest). Is there a way to sum the
sales data with a formula =sum(A2) where cell A2 contains the text
"northwest"?