Use the DATA property of the itemRenderer.
The Flex help has a very illustrative example. If your dataProvider is:
<mx:ArrayList>
<fx:Object firstName="Bill" lastName="Smith" companyID="11233"/>
<fx:Object firstName="Dave" lastName="Jones" companyID="13455"/>
<fx:Object firstName="Mary" lastName="Davis" companyID="11543"/>
<fx:Object firstName="Debbie" lastName="Cooper" companyID="14266"/>
</mx:ArrayList>
you can access the data item as follows:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- containers\spark\myComponents\MySimpleItemRenderer.mxml -->
<s:ItemRenderer xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"
xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx"
xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark">
<s:HGroup verticalCenter="0" left="2" right="2" top="2" bottom="2">
<s:Label text="{data.lastName}, {data.firstName}"/>
<s:Label text="{data.companyID}"/>
</s:HGroup>
</s:ItemRenderer>