OK, nevermind - after sleeping on it I realized that I had read in the forum somewhere that a grandparent cannot take on the attributes of a grandchild, that the parent has to make a bridge between the two. When I created my "swatch" component, it because a grandchild of my dynamic component. Today I built the bridge, put the material info on the swatch (grandchild) level, referencing the swatch material in my parent level and referencing my parent material at the grandparent level - it works like a charm!!!

@chris fullmer said: I went ahead and made a DC that does what you want. The user can choose one of 4 colors from a list. Then upon OnClick'ing on the component, it changes between dark, medium, and light of that color. I'll attach the DC and you can check it out. Chris Not only is he a fellow surfer with a cool hat, he's a sketchup legend. Love ya work mate! Been searching for how to change materials by onclick all day. Doin' my head in. Keep on paddling