Sy said "If you ask TIAA-CREF to do it for you, they take it evenly distributed from all your investments in each group."

That may be their default but I explicitly asked more than one WMA is they would take enough out of my IRA to cover all my IRAs including one sizable one I now have in a brokerage account and twice (at least) I was told "yes, they would do that but I of course would have to tell them the amount to withdrawal to meet the total RMD for both IRAs. In effect this really amounts to what you do - figure out how much you have to take out and then have it taken out as you specify. In my case I am going to specify the amount and that it come from my T-C IRA. So I don't think you and I disagree on this it is just a matter of making things clear enough for others to understand.

Ray