A systematic procedure to study one-dimensional Schrödinger equation with a position-dependent effective mass (PDEM) in the kinetic energy operator is explored. The conventional free-particle problem reveals a new and interesting situation in that, in the presence of a mass background, formation of bound states is signalled. We also discuss coordinate-transformed, constant-mass Schrödinger equation, its matching with the PDEM form and the consequent decoupling of the ambiguity parameters. This provides a unified approach to many exact results known in the literature, as well as to a lot of new ones.