vlookup in second column if first result no good

Hi

I have stumbled upon a brick wall and can't progress any further. Basically, I have a sheet with two date columns. The first date column is entered manually and the second date column performs a vlookup from a separate sheet with two sets of dates. I want the result of the vlookup to be compared to the date in the static column one. If the date is earlier than column one I want to perform a second vlookup from the table and return the date in the next column. In a nutshell, the table of data that the vlookup is looking for, has an early date and a late date and depending on what static date is displayed on column one, sheet one, depicts whether an early or late date is returned into column two. I am probably making this out to sound way more complicated that it really is to somebody with Excel experience. I hope somebody can help me out on this one, as it's driving me nuts.

Many thanks,

Mac

OK,

assume your static date is in A2 and you want to look this up initially in sheet2!A2:A10 and return a date from the next column - but if that date is less than A2 you want to return a date from column C. Try something like

=IF(VLOOKUP(A2,sheet2!A2:C10,2,0)<A2, VLOOKUP(A2,sheet2!A2:C10,3,0), VLOOKUP(A2,sheet2!A2:C10,2,0))

Thank you very much to you both. It's amazing when the answer is in front of you that it all looks so simple.

Much obliged,

Mac