For workdays, Monday to Friday, you can do it with a single SELECT, like this:
DECLARE @StartDate DATETIME
DECLARE @EndDate DATETIME
SET @StartDate="2008/10/01"
SET @EndDate="2008/10/31"
SELECT
(DATEDIFF(dd, @StartDate, @EndDate) + 1)
-(DATEDIFF(wk, @StartDate, @EndDate) * 2)
-(CASE WHEN DATENAME(dw, @StartDate) = 'Sunday' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END)
-(CASE WHEN DATENAME(dw, @EndDate) = 'Saturday' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END)
If you want to include holidays, you have to work it out a bit…