We report the design, fabrication and characterization of a lead-silicate glass highly nonlinear W-type fiber with a flattened and near-zero dispersion profile in the 1.55 microm region. The fiber was composed of three types of commercial lead silicate glasses. Effectively single-mode guidance was observed in the fiber at 1550 nm. The nonlinear coefficient and the propagation loss at this wavelength were measured to be 820 W(-1)km(-1) and 2.1 dB/m, respectively. Investigations of the Brillouin threshold revealed no evidence of stimulated Brillouin scattering for continuous wave signal powers up to 29 dBm in a 2m sample of the fiber. A broadband dispersion measurement confirmed the near-zero dispersion values and the flat dispersion profile around 1550 nm, in good agreement with our simulations. Efficient four-wave-mixing, tunable across the whole C-band, was demonstrated in a 2.2m length of the fiber.