Try using Firefox with the Firebug add-on for this kind of CSS troubleshooting. Or use whatever developer tool is available in your web browser.
The problem is that I’m not really sure where to even begin with something like this… I’m wondering if someone has code they’ve already been successful with?
This is site specific stuff. Do you know how to use CSS? If not, I can recommend the following resources:
CSS Tutorials
Learning CSS
css-discuss.org