I'm trying to trigger my Akai S-20 from a pad connected to my dm5 and am having no luck..I'm new to this but I have a MIDI cable going from the DM5 to the S-20 and have the MIDI Channels set the same and everything else I can think of..any ideas???

That sounds like you have it connected correctly. You do have the MIDI OUT on the DM5 connected to the MIDI IN on the S-20 don't you ? While this is obvious to most users people using MIDI for the first time can sometimes connect MIDI IN to MIDI IN which of course won't work.