Photoshop 6+ will automatically slice, but you can do it manually.
You were right when you thought about using tables.
http://www.dresdendolls.com/main1.htm (maybe NSFW for a few people, It's a band website so nothing even remotely bad but nudity nonetheless.) It uses rollover images but you could use the same technique with text buttons. Copy the source and paste it into dreamweaver to get a general idea of how it was done. I couldn't(didn't have time) to find a better example but about 99% of porn sites have something similar on the front page if you'd rather look at them.
