Jason,
Im not sure if access 97 supports this, but in access 2000 and access XP you can Link tables from other access databases to you master db, in visual basic when you create the connection to the master db you can open recordsets to these linked tables without connecting to the other databases.
With regards to deploying this database on cd-rom discs, i think you can programatically create the linked tables using "ADO Ext. 2.5 for DDL and Security"

benj