Thanks for all of the replies!  Although I have been playing with Lisp for many years, I do not have much experience with ASDF or QuickLisp.

I appreciate all of the suggestions and explanations, however, with respect, they all seem like work-arounds or hacks for my purposes.  I am not suggesting, however, that your input wasn't valid, helpful, or there is a better way.

I understand the idea that QuickLisp is not a package manager but a system manager.  In that case, it delivers completed system easily and conveniently.  It's a great tool.

I think a true package manager option in QuickLisp would be incredibly useful.  Here is the scenario.

I am building a system.  It has dependencies X, Y, and Z.  I complete my system and package it up as a QuickLisp system.  Later, I'd like to work on my system.  I'd like to work on a local copy in a directory of my choosing.  I'd like it to load its dependencies (X, Y, and Z) yet work on my part of the system without loading the version in the QuickLisp repo.

While some of your suggestions will allow me to do that, they are real clunky.  Either I have to work in specific directories or I have to have special code specific to the particular directory I choose to work in.

All of this is contrary to the way all other system I've used work.  In general, I can clone a repo to any directory and do:

./configure

make

sudo make install

and it works!  I can put the clone anywhere I want.  I can change it anyway I want.  The system doesn't fight me.

I wouldn't think this would be hard at all to make ASDF and QuickLisp have this capability.

Blake McBride