The request has exceeded the allowable time limit

I'm no newbee to ColdFusion programming but I am new at server configuration. We are experiencing HUGE time outs for database calls and I'm trying to figure out if it's a programming error or something on our database. We are running ColdFusion MX 6 and using SQL Server 2000. It seems like the more traffic we get to the site and people trying to pull data, the more time outs we get. Has anyone experienced a large number of time outs and resolved the issue? Is there some setting I'm missing in the server admin? Many thanks