I have tried everything I can think to do and I can not seem to get the
results I want. What I have is a spreadsheet with several columns and I want
to have excel count the unique values across multiple columns. The columns I
want counted are part number columns that are separated by cost columns. I
can get excel to show the unique part numbers for a given column, but it is
possible for the same part number to be in more than one column. Here is the
basic layout....

part# cost part# cost part# cost
123 456 789
456 789
789
123 789

I can get excel to look at column 1 (or 3 or 5) and tell me each unique part
number.

Column 1
123
456
789

What I want is for it to look across column 1, 3, and 5 and give me a single
list of all unique part numbers instead of a list for each of the columns.
In other words, I want the list to be like the above instead of...

Column1 Column 2 Column 3
123 456 789
456 789
789

The end result will be, once the list is created, to have excel count how
many times total each part number appears in the three columns (I can do that
part). If this question makes no sense, that is probably the reason I can't
do what I want. ;)