I'm using System.Data.Odbc to open an Excel file ([tt]excelConn = New OdbcConnection("Driver={Microsoft Excel Driver (*.xls)};DriverId=790;Dbq=" & sFileName & ";DefaultDir=" & sDirectory & ";")[/tt]) and am having no trouble opening the file, and reading each row via an OdbcDataReader, but for some reason, numbers are coming back as dbnulls. When I edit my Excel file by placing a "'" in front of a number (making it a string), it's read by the reader as a string, but left as a decimal number, it's dbnull. Any thoughts or ideas? Thanks.