I am new to the world of IRAs. Is it possible to have more than one IRA account? Are the dollar contributions limited to $4,000 total[b] in a given year or can one contribute $4,000 to each IRA account? Thank you in advance for your replies.

You can have as many IRA accounts as you want to pay the fees for.

The COMBINED contributions to all your traditional and Roth IRA's for 2006 cannot exceed $4,000 if under 50 years old.

If you were allowed to have multiple accounts each at 4000, you would defeat the limitation Congress wanted on IRA/Roths.

While you can have multiple IRA/Roths, there are practical limitations from how much paperwork you want to track and possible additional fees for multiple small balance accounts.

But... if you wanted 2000 at Vanguard and a second 2000 at T Rowe Price... you might want to have two direct mutual fund accounts, especially if one or more of your chosen funds are not commonly listed at brokerages.