problems populating combobox

I give up!! I'm having problems populating a combobox with the numbers 1 - 10.  Anybody see anything wrong with this code.  It's from OnInitDialog.  The combobox is on a dialog created using the ATL wizard. First call to SendMessage returns 0.  GetLastError() returns 0.  Second call to SendMessage return -1, which is right because the combobox was not properly populated.

const ULONG MAX_POSSIBLE_MIGS = 10;


     HWND h_Combo = GetDlgItem(IDC_MAXMIGS_COMBO);
     //populate the combo box control
     for( int x = 1; x <= MAX_POSSIBLE_MIGS; ++x )
     {    
          COMBOBOXEXITEM item = {0};
          item.mask = CBEIF_TEXT;
          item.iItem =   - 1;
          TCHAR buff[10] = {0};
          _itow( x, buff, 10 );
          item.pszText = buff;
//          item.cchTextMax = (lstrlen(buff)+1);
     
          long ret = SendMessage( h_Combo, CBEM_INSERTITEM, NULL, reinterpret_cast<LPARAM>(&item));
          long err = GetLastError();
          m_vComboItems.push_back(&item);
     }
     ///set the default concurrent migrations to 3
     HWND h = GetDlgItem(IDC_MAXMIGS_COMBO);
    long ret =     SendMessage(h, CB_SETCURSEL,  static_cast<WPARAM>(4), NULL  );
     return FALSE;  // Let the system set the focus