Table and navigation

[babytux]

I'm currently putting a site together and (for better or worse) decided to use a table for the layout. However, I now have a problem with the navigation of where I originally wanted one cell/column to contain the buttons for navigation and for them to directly target another, specific cell for the pages. Other than iframes (which I'm trying to avoid using), is there another way for me to do this or is there a better way for me to maintain something similar to my current layout and still be able to accomplish this? I'm also trying to avoid using Javascript for this in the interest of browser compatibility. Any help will be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[babytux]

Would switching over to using divs instead make a difference with this and how would I go about it? I'm fairly new to this and would appreciate the input.