I saw lots of posts so am fairly sure this is possible, but want to verify
and maybe get pointers to some good how-to articles.

Starting from an Excel spreadsheet with 20 columns of data, take the values
from three columns and use them as criteria to query an Access database. For
each row in the Excel file the query should return one answer (a price) that
then gets plunked into Column 21 for that row. "Sub-question": The
spreadsheet could have as many as a thousand rows, and the Access table being
queried has several HUNDRED thousand, so the query run time could be
considerable if it has to be run once for each row. I'm hoping there's a way
of not having to run the query a thousand times -- passing an array that
holds all the criteria, running the query once on the Access end, then
passing back an array with all the answers, something like that. Any ideas
welcome.