Problem interfacing with an lcd with an arduino
You need to check a few things.

1) What voltage rating is the LCD?  Most LCD displays require +5V power supply.

2) What voltage is the processor on your Arduino board running at?  These can be either 3.3V or 5V.

If your Arduino board is running at 3.3V and you are trying to run a 5V LDS display from it without using level conversion, it probably won't work.

3) Does the display change at all as you rotate the contrast pot?  FWIW - the voltage on the contrast line is usually fairly close to ground.

4) How have you connected the display to the Arduino?  You need a minimum of 6 lines: data lines 4-7 plus EN &amp; RS.  Just connect the R/W line from the LCD to ground for now.

5) Is your LCD rated for operation at cold temperature?  If so, you may need to bring the contrast line below ground (negative).  It doesn't need to be much below ground and you should still see something on the display with the contrast voltage set to 0V - but you may need to do this if you can't get enough contrast on the display when you get it working.

6) Is your Arduino sketch known-good working code?

7) Are you actually getting your code into the Arduino?  Maybe do a flashing LED from one of the port pins to ensure that your programming environment is working.