cx_Oracle problem

[Squid]

It's time for another round of "stump-the-geek". (thats what we call
it in my office)

If actual code is needed I can provide but lets start off small for
this one...

I've got a Python script that uses cx_Oracle to access an Oracle DB.
running the script from command line runs perfect
running the script as a cron job produces "Unable to acquire Oracle
environment handle" in log.

In both cases it is running as the same user, in the same environment.

any ideas???