This one's pretty simple to fix, and maddeningly difficult to figure out.
If you compile nedit 5.5 on cygwin, you may get errors involving the following:

• Suggesting that you check the documentation the documentation for ld's --enable-auto-import for details
• Not being able to auto-import string __XmStrings or XmStrings or _XtShellStrings

I can't find the exact error message because I can't seem to get it back again.

All you have to do is type (at a bash prompt, before you make)
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/bin
This fixes it!
The bit that finally clued me in was info on direct linking to a dll. I still don't fully understand whats wrong, but its 11:30, and I have a lab to do that was actually due --- three days ago?

(By the way, notices like Info: resolving _transientShellClassRec by linking to __imp__transientShellClassRec (auto-import) are NOT errors!>