The λ-DB project at the University of Texas at Arlington aims at developing frameworks and prototype systems that address the new query optimization challenges for object-oriented and object-relational databases, such as query nesting, multiple collection types, methods, and arbitrary nesting of collections. We have already developed a theoretical framework for query optimization based on an effective calculus, called the monoid comprehension calculus [4]. The system reported here is a fully operational ODMG 2.0 [2] OODB management system, based on this framework. Our system can handle most ODL declarations and can process most OQL query forms. λ-DB is not ODMG compliant. Instead it supports its own C++ binding that provides a seamless integration between OQL and C++ with low impedance mismatch. It allows C++ variables to be used in queries and results of queries to be passed back to C++ programs. Programs expressed in our C++ binding are compiled by a preprocessor that performs query optimization at compile time, rather than run-time, as it is proposed by ODMG. In addition to compiled queries, λ-DB provides an interpreter that evaluates ad-hoc OQL queries at run-time.