if you're entering the password into a textbox control on a form, you can
set the textbox's InputMask property to Password. that does not *change* the
data entered by the user, but *displays* it as asterisks.
you can use a DLookup() function to return the correct password from the
table and compare it to the value entered in the textbox. if you're not
familiar with DLookup(), see Access Help for more details.
hth