If you open it with the Jet drivers and query it using Jet-SQL with ADO.Net
then you'll have a Dataset which is your XML.

Excel is an ISAM so you can work with it using Jet as middleware just like
you can do with xBase or Lotus or Text or HTML ISAMs.

Do what you want with the XML Dataset including connecting to an actaul Jet
file ("Access" data file) and iterating through the Dataset to create
Inserts for the Jet file (or dynamically link the Excel sheet right to the
Jet file and use Jet-SQL Insert Into statements for a fast table creation).

Back and forth, vise versa.

Example to consider, this loads the sheet values into a grid ... because the
values are in a Dataset (XML)

The HDR=Yes in the connection string tells the provider that the first row
of the sheet has values that are used as "Column Names", if your sheet
doesn't have that then don't say Yes :)

Imports System.Data.Oledb
.....

Dim cn As New OleDbConnection("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;" & _
"Data Source=C:\mytests\book1.xls;" & _
"Extended Properties=""Excel 8.0;HDR=Yes""")

Dim ds As New DataSet

Dim da As New OleDbDataAdapter("Select * from [Sheet1$]", cn)
cn.Open()
Try
da.Fill(ds)
MsgBox(ds.Tables.Count)
MsgBox(ds.Tables(0).Rows.Count)

grid1.DataSource = ds.Tables(0)

Catch ex As Exception
MsgBox(ex.ToString)
End Try

Note the special bracket-$ syntax for sheetnames.  Named ranges can also be
called with slightly different syntax and you can query using specific
"column names" sortings, pivots and most all other options that are
supported by Jet-SQL.
Look to Office Developer Help and related resources for more information on
using ISAMs via Jet.

Hope that helps.

Robert Smith
Kirkland, WA
www.smithvoice.com