I am looking to make a navigation menu similar to the following:

http://www.coremediadesign.co.uk/website_design_company/about_core_media_design.html

This is the sprite image they use.

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/8185/menuo.png

I would like to accomplish the same thing.  I am NOT looking for one long image with my entire menu in image format.  I want a three-part background image/sprite like the one I posted above that is used as the background/hover/active by repeating it on the x-axis.

I have tried for a long time to get this working but have not been able to.  Please help me out.