Problem with ncurses library

[joe ferguson]

I'm trying to build 2.4.3 from source on a SuSE 9.2 system.  ./configure 
can't find the lncurses library.  I have a couple of versions of ncurses 
libraries (libncurses.so.4.2 and libncursesw.so.5.4) in /usr/lib.  Where 
is it looking for tgoto, tputs, tgetnum, tgetent, tgetstr, tgetflag?

The reasons I'm building from source are that  I want the newest stable 
version AND the rpm with the SuSE 9.2 system won't install, and that 
traces back to problems with makeinfo, which I believe also leads to the 
same problem with ncurses.

Any guidance?

--
Joe Ferguson