Yesterday I need a Flex cell renderer that would change the background color based on the value of the cell (for example, green if a positive number and red if negative). Unfortunately, background color is not a style, that would have been the simplest option. The solution is to use ActionScript drawing APIs, and the following code was given to me by Flex Evangelist Christophe Coenraets. I am posting it here in case anyone else needs it, and so that I'll have it around when I need it next. First the renderer: package { import mx.controls.Label; import mx.controls.dataGridClasses.*; import mx.controls.DataGrid; import flash.display.Graphics; public class BackgroundColorRenderer extends Label { override protected function updateDisplayList(unscaledWidth:Number, unscaledHeight:Number):void { super.updateDisplayList(unscaledWidth, unscaledHeight); var g:Graphics = graphics; var grid:DataGrid = DataGrid(DataGridListData(listData).owner); if (data.balance >= 0) { g.beginFill(0x009900); g.drawRect(0, 0, unscaledWidth, unscaledHeight); g.endFill(); } else { g.beginFill(0xFF0000); g.drawRect(0, 0, unscaledWidth, unscaledHeight); g.endFill(); } } } } And here is an example of the renderer being used: