Newsforge is running an article titled Be your own CA that covers the process for building your own CA as well as giving some background information on how it all sticks together, it is well worth a read if you are unsure how certificates, revocation and so forth works.
I usually use a guide and files found at http://sial.org/howto/openssl/ca/, it includes some make files to automate some of the work and to minimize user error, the two sites compliment each other nicely.
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