If you can create a result set that for each item, also has the quantity or frequency of that item, and if you can use SQL 2005, you can then use the ROW_NUMBER function over the item identifier, ordered by the frequency or quantity in descending order. From that result, you simply select the item with ROW_NUMBER of N, for the Nth most frequent. Does that make sense?
Steve
(aka smunson)
:):):)