External Optical Drive for MacBook

Sorry if that sounds like a stupid question:
My built-in optical drive on my MacBook Pro does not work.
Can I connect an external drive to my MacBook. I went to a
shop today (in India) but they told me the external drive
for the MacBook Air would not work on a MacBook Pro.
Any ideas? Thing is I bought Final Cut Express but I cannot
install it without a drive now, can I? Does anybody have a
workaround for me? Thanks a lot.
Mike

Just a quick note about this thread, I have the same problem but was apprehensive about buying an external CD/DVD drive because most of them don't say they are compatible with Mac OS only Windows. Can I assume this is not true, it would be great if I could buy a decent drive at last and not worry about the large cost of replacing the built in one. Would I have to download any firmware for a new External drive or would it work from the start?
Cheers Richard

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