Open Excel Spreadsheet as database?

I have some data that i need to look up in tables and translate that data onto an excel spreadsheet. The data that has to be looked up is also on an excel spreadsheet. I've been working on a Visual basic program to do this, but can't find a way to open an Excel spreadsheet (in code if possible) and pull info from it as if it were a database. Any suggestions on how to do this would be much appreciated!

here is some code to open an excel spreadsheet using ADO:

http://forums.vb-world.net/showthrea...threadid=23151

Have a look at my posting username as sbain (just posted today).