Filtering content of a drop down list

[bruce_brisbane]

I am trying to have a drop down list which only shows filtered records from a table as follows:-
I have a "Contact_Details" sheet which has my contacts in a table, including their state and status.
In the table, I can use filters to only show records from a certain state, but I am trying to show these filtered results in a drop down list.
On the Main sheet in the workbook, I would like to have a cell for "State" & another cell for "Status" as input cells, followed by a drop down list. The idea is that the drop down list content is filtered based on the content of the input cells (if any).
If the input cells are empty, all records will be in the list.
I am hoping to do this through data validation if possible, but I have also had a look at list and combo boxes but can't work out how to filter the content.
I am trying to avoid VB coding if I can as I haven't coded for years and would like to keep it as simple as possible.
All help is appreciated.

 

[pbornemeier]

I cannot think of a way to do it without VBA code, but there still might be one.
http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/excel-questions/395981-refresh-rowsource-visible-data.html shows one way to do it with VBA code.