I have tried various combinations of quotes and symbols hoping to stumble on the solution using the patented "Blind Dumb Luck" method, to no avail. In the future, this will be connected to a "real" database, so I cannot use one of the other methods for interacting with Excel. I was hoping this would make it easy for me to develop then port to the database server when the time comes.
Here is my code:

use DBI;
$debug = 1;
$| = 1;
my $kaiser_file = 'd:\perl\scripts\kevin\excel_data\query.xls';
my $amr_file = 'd:\perl\scripts\kevin\excel_data\data.xls';
$amr_db = DBI->connect("DBI:Excel:file=$amr_file")
    or die "Cannot connect: " . $DBI::errstr;
print "Connected to: $amr_file\n";
foreach $table ($amr_db->tables())
{
    print "Table: $table ";
    $sth = $amr_db->prepare("SELECT * from $table LIMIT 2");
    $sth->execute();
    if ($sth->{NUM_OF_FIELDS} <= 1)
    {
    print "has $sth->{NUM_OF_FIELDS} fields.  Skipping.\n";
    next;
    }
    print "has $sth->{NUM_OF_FIELDS} fields.  Using this table.\n";
    $amr_table = $table;
    for ($i = 1 ; $i <= $sth->{NUM_OF_FIELDS} ; $i++)
    {
    $col_name = $sth->{NAME}->[$i-1];
    printf("  Col %2d, Name = \'%s\'\n",$i,$col_name);
    $amr_col_num{$col_name} = $i;
    $amr_col_name{$i} = $col_name;
    }
    $sth->finish();
}
$sql = "SELECT 'Tracking Nbr' FROM $amr_table";
print "$sql\n";
$amr_sth = $amr_db->prepare($sql);
$amr_sth->execute();
$row_count = 1;
while ($hashref = $amr_sth->fetchrow_hashref())
    {
    print "Row: $row_count\n";
    $row_count++;
    foreach $key (keys (%$hashref))
    {
        print "  $key => $$hashref{$key}\n";
    }
    }
$sth->finish();
if ($kaiser_db)
{
    print "Disconnecting from kaiser.\n";
    $kaiser_db->disconnect();
}
[download]

This produces the following output:

Connected to: d:\perl\scripts\kevin\excel_data\data.xls
Table: Kaiser_VRT_Extract_Sac has 23 fields.  Using this table.
  Col  1, Name = 'PupPriority'
  Col  2, Name = 'PupProblem'
  Col  3, Name = 'Referral Nbr'
  Col  4, Name = 'Tracking Nbr'
  Col  5, Name = 'IncidentNumber'
  Col  6, Name = 'TCR'
  Col  7, Name = 'PickupPromised'
  Col  8, Name = 'DTAlert'
  Col  9, Name = 'DTEnroute'
  Col 10, Name = 'DTAtScene'
  Col 11, Name = 'DTDepartScene'
  Col 12, Name = 'DTAtDestination'
  Col 13, Name = 'Cleared'
  Col 14, Name = 'PupLocName'
  Col 15, Name = 'PupAddress'
  Col 16, Name = 'PupZip'
  Col 17, Name = 'DestLocName'
  Col 18, Name = 'DestAddress'
  Col 19, Name = 'PatientName'
  Col 20, Name = 'CallerType'
  Col 21, Name = 'CancelReason'
  Col 22, Name = 'PupRoom'
  Col 23, Name = 'RunNumber'
SELECT 'Tracking Nbr' FROM Kaiser_VRT_Extract_Sac
SQL ERROR: Bad table or column name '?0?' has chars not alphanumeric o
+r underscore!

DBD::Excel::st fetchrow_hashref failed: Attempt to fetch row from a No
+n-SELECT statement at test.pl line 35.
[download]

Your guidance is much appreciated