Can't Pass String to nc.connect(string)

hey guys. fairly new to flash, but I’ve managed to throw together a player with info and tutorials from here and other places. I’ve got everything just how I want it save for one problem. I’ve got an XML file that I get the URL for my server from and also get the names of videos to populate a list. Here’s the problem:
I can get the URL into a string in my program (it traces fine). However, when i try to pass that string in my nc.connect(string) it doesn’t work. Everything loads fine, but when you click a video, it can’t connect to it. If I manually enter the URL into the connect field like this: nc.connect(“rtmp://url”) it works fine.
So am I missing something? Why can it take the URL manually entered and not from a string?