I want to call an outlook contact directly from another
program (using either the address book or outlook) by the
name. How do I reference the contact?

Try this code; you can reference the Contact in the MAPIFolder.Items
collection by the Subject property, which for Contacts is the same as the
FullName property.

Function GetContactByName() As Outlook.ContactItem
    Dim objContactFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder
    Dim objMyContact As Outlook.ContactItem

    Set objContactFolder =
Application.GetNamespace("MAPI").GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts)
    Set GetContactByName = objContactFolder.Items("Eric Legault")
End Function

--
Eric Legault, MCSD
ADAPSYS - http://www.adapsys.ca