You are correct, it is security... I issued same statement this time using user id and password to see if it works, and yes it did give me results:

select *

from OPENDATASOURCE('SQLNCLI',

'Data Source=DESTSERVR\INSTANCE;user id =test;password=psw' ).[TESTTBL].dbo.[TBLNAME]

The question I have is that if I am running the query, and my windows account is admin on both boxes, why isn't it working then!?

Thank you.

Lava