Passing Connection String to CR in VB.NET

I have a program originally written in VB6 that I am rewriting in VB.NET. The program includes several Crystal Reports. I have 2 questions:

1) In VB6 I could pass a connection string to a report using the Crystal Report object's "Connect" property. That property is not part of the VB.NET CrystalReportViewer object. How can I pass a connection string to the CRV at runtime?

2) One of the major reasons I am rewriting this program in VB.NET is to get away from ODBC connections. I am using the .NET OLEDB classes to connect to the AS/400 system housing the data. Is there a way to allow CR to get to the AS/400 data for its reports without using an ODBC connection? If not, this is all pretty much for naught.

I am running Visual Studio.NET 2003 Professional and Crystal Reports 8.0 developer edition.

Thanks ahead of time for everyone's assistance.