Assign XML to variable

How do I assign XmlDocument results to a variable (so that I can pass it to a sp)?

I know that the following code works....

select * from tblUsers where userId = 1225 for XML raw

It returns "<row UserId="1225" LastName="Evans" FirstName="Stephanie" MiddleInitial=...."), which is what I want. But when I try to assign it, I get an error "Incorrect syntax near 'XML'."

declare @.strXml nvarchar(1000)

set @.strXml = (select * from tblUsers where userId = 1225 for XML raw)

Ideas?

It is not possible to do this in SQL Server 2000 using TSQL. You cannot consume the XML output on the server-side in any form. This is possible in SQL Server 2005 since there is a native XML data type and there are lot of improvements to FOR XML clause.