My EXCEL formula isn't working, why?

Hello,

Why won't my formula return my total # count?
Here's the problem....

Column A Column B Column C Column D Column E
672 20 20601RF 6/19/09 0

Here's my Formula:

=COUNTIF(C:C,'20601RF')

I'm asking it to give me a total number count of '20601RF' from the column 'C'
I can clearly see that there's '5' in that column but I'm getting back '0'.
It's obvious to me that it doesn't like the letters or special symbols (like the dash '-' but--how do I get around that? I've chnaged the format cells option from general to text and that didn't work...(I've even tried the other options, --no go).

Also, I have hundreds of records that work just fine with this formula BUT those are all numbers (no letter, no special characters).

So, any suggestions?

Thanks.