Query with # field with leading zero in criteria

[dcwaits]

I have an ODBC connection to a dB that has [customer number] field that may or may not have a leading zero. The field is a number field. If I leave out the leading zero in my criteria, my customer is not found. If I enter the number with leading zero in the criteria Access is happy to strip it out for me. Any Ideas how to force the leading zero in a criteria? Quotes "012345" makes my criteria text and I get a data type mismatch.

[JoeM]

What kind of database is this exactly that you are connecting to via ODBC?

What happens if you create a query and enter this calculated field?
Check: IsNumeric([FieldName])
What does it return?

If the field is truly "numeric", it cannot have a leading zero. Leading zeroes mean nothing to numeric values and are dropped.
If it has a leading zero, it is probably Text.

The only thing I can think of is if this is an Excel file that has "mixed" values (some Numeric, some Text).