System doesn't see my DP libraries. . .what am I doing wrong?

Hi All, I'm having a bit of an issue here. I'm trying to compile VLC from source, but it's complaining about a library. So I installed the library using DP. Now I can't for the life of me figure out why the system isn't seeing my DP installed libraries. I've tried adjusting path, soft linking to "/opt/local/lib". . .everything. And nothing works. What am I missing? How do I get the OS to see my DP installed libraries at compile time? Regards, Michael