Yes.

Typically a LEFT OUTER JOIN is used for that.

Say you're inserting names and want to avoid inserting one that's already in the table:

INSERT INTO dbo.names_table ( name )

SELECT wt.name

FROM dbo.work_table wt

LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.names_tables nt ON

nt.name = wt.name

WHERE

nt.name IS NULL --true only if name doesn't already exist in dbo.names_table