  In this contribution initial results are presented from a program to study in
detail the stellar populations of dwarf Spheroidal (dSph) galaxies in three
nearby groups. The long-term aim of the program is to assess the influence of
environment in governing the evolution of these low-luminosity systems.
Specific results described here include the detection and measurement of
intermediate-age upper-AGB populations in dSphs in the M81 and Cen A groups,
and the discovery that four of the five low-luminosity early-type dwarfs in the
low density Sculptor group contain modest amounts of neutral hydrogen gas.
