TCHAR is just a typedef that, depending on your compilation configuration, either defaults to char or wchar_t.
Standard Template Library supports both ASCII (with std::string) and wide character sets (with std::wstring). All you need to do is to typedef String as either std::string or std::wstring depending on your compilation configuration. To maintain flexibility you can use the following code:
#ifndef UNICODE
typedef std::string String;
#else
typedef std::wstring String;
#endif
Now you may use String in your code and let the compiler handle the nasty parts. String will now have constructors that lets you convert TCHAR to std::string or std::wstring.