Ha! Found a page of the 3000 most frequently used Chinese characters, sorted by frequency on the web. That'll do for a vocabulary list for studying. I'd rather have a list sorted by competency exam or a reading list by grade level, but this will do. I'm eager to get started.

http://www.zein.se/patrick/3000char.html

I was going to go back to my old standby and use the SanZiJing, but it's hanging out with my 300 Tang poems, which is to say, where I can't find it.