lead to

lead to \lead to\ v. t.
   1. Same as {cause}; as, the roaring stock market led to an
      increase in the purchase of big-ticket items during the
      1996 Christmas season.

   Syn: result in, lead to.
        [PJC]

   2. to be a contributory cause of; as, IBM's inattention to
      the needs of individual users led to the demise of OS/2 as
      a viable alternative to Windows 95.

   Syn: be conducive to, contribute to, lead to, conduce to.
        [WordNet 1.5 +PJC]
    

45 Moby Thesaurus words for "lead to":
      advance, affect, assume, bring, call for, carry to, come to,
      comprise, conduce to, conduct to, contain, contribute to, decide,
      determine, direct to, entail, extend to, forward, get to, go to,
      implicate, imply, influence, involve, point out to, point the way,
      presume, presuppose, put right, reach to, redound to, require,
      run to, set right, set straight, show, show the way, steer,
      stretch away to, stretch to, subserve, subsume, take, take in,
      turn the scale