With that in mind, the Environmental Protection Agency called a meeting of lead-based paint experts from around the country last month to determine why buyers seem to be ignoring the Government's efforts to increase awareness of the hazards associated with lead based paint.

Several of those experts, interviewed for this article, say that the reason more people are not getting lead-based paint inspections is because many buyers -- indeed, many homeowners -- harbor some basic misconceptions about the issue.

Many homeowners, for example, erroneously believe that lead-based paint is an ''inner city'' problem. In fact, experts say, there is lead-based paint in about two-thirds of the nation's housing stock. And wherever lead paint is present, they say, so, too, is the potential for problems.

Another misconception is that even if lead-based paint is present in a house, it poses no danger as long as the paint is not chipping or peeling off walls or ceilings. Indeed, specialists say, while intact surfaces are safe as long as they remain intact, they can easily become hazardous if they are abraded by regular use -- such as by opening and closing windows and doors -- or by renovation efforts like tearing down walls and removing or stripping woodwork.

And finally, those who have studied the problem say, a good number of homeowners are under the mistaken impression that to render a home safe from lead-based paint hazards requires nothing less than removal of every last bit of lead in the house -- an extraordinarily expensive solution that is out of the question for most homeowners.

Abatement contractors point out, however, that the best way to deal with existing lead-based paint is to remove what can easily be removed and cover or maintain what cannot -- options that are relatively inexpensive and generally safe.

If concerns about the ingestion of some floor dust by otherwise healthy children seems to be a well-intentioned exaggeration of the hazard posed by lead, consider the following illustration of the problem provided by Lee Wasserman, president of Lew Corporation, a lead inspection and risk assessment company based in Livingston, N.J.