There is currently considerable interest in the preparation of soluble metal-organic complexes that might be suitable as precursors for the formation of perovskite phase metal oxide materials.'-3 The sol-gel method of hydrolysis and condensation of metal alkoxide precursors is an attractive route to formation of such materials due to low processing temperatures and the potential for control over stoichiometry at the molecular level."' However, one potential disadvantage of this method is that different metal-organic precursors can react with each otherprior to or during hydrolysis to form mixtures of compounds with incorrect stoichiometries.8 and others7J3J4 have been investigating the reactions of metal-organic compounds in which stoichiometry is controlled at the molecular level by formation of "single-campogent" molecular precursors. In this work, we report the synthesis and characterization of two lead(I1) a-hydroxy carboxylate complexes, [Pb(O$CRzOH)2] (R = H, Me), and their reactivity toward Ti and Sn alkoxide compounds. These species were prepared because they contain a site of latent reactivity, the hydroxyl group, which may react with other metahrganic moieties, such as metal alkoxide compounds, to form heterobimetallic species of fixed stoichiometry. While a number of metal a-hydroxy carboxylates have been prepared,15 there are relatively few examples of glycolate derivatives of divalent metals.16J7 As a method to circumvent such problems,