Well, it's not trivial, but neither is it hard.

This assumes that your description is to be taken literally, i.e., if your
lists are like so:

list1 list2
a m
b b
c o

you want to ELIMINATE the b, leaving
a
c
m
o

if list1 is in A2:A100 and list2 is in D2:D100 then use this in B2 and copy
it down

=countif(A$2:A$100,A2)+countif(D$2:D$100,A2)

Use this in E2 and copy it down

=countif(A$2:A$100,D2)+countif(D$2:D$100,D2)

Then, one by one, filter each list [A2:B100 and D2:E100] for the formula
result of
1. Copy each filtered list to a new location. The combination of the two
copied ranges is your desired result

" wrote:

Hello, I'm not the most savvy excel user, so this could be a simple
question. My problem is this: I have two listsof data, a master list
and a subordinate list. What I would like to do is compare the two
lists and have excel subtract out any overlapping data, outputting a
third list of completely unique values. Any help would be so much
appreciated.

Peter