Are you talking about a film SLR, or older digital slr? I believe that for the film-based SLR, if it is part of the EOS family, any EF lens will work with them in terms of using autofocus. An EF-S lens is only designed to work with the digital EOS models that have an APS sized sensor (such as the Digital Rebel, Rebel XT, XTi and soon the XSi). Maybe someone with more experience can chime in.
Hope this helps.