question on website design in Dreamweaver CS3

I suspect that this forum is just loaded with web designers, so maybe someone here can answer my pretty basic question.

I'm learning how to use CSS for page layout. It's going well, but now I'm stuck. I have a page, like a portfolio, with a series of thumbnails down the left side. When you mouse over the thumbnail, a larger image appears to the right, with text underneath it. Each thumbnail shows a corresponding larger image and accompanying text. How do I build in the larger images/text layers so that they won't show until you mouse over the thumbnail?

I think the way to do it is to create separate css rules for each layer, give them all the same absolute position and make them all "hidden", then stack them in the web page. Is that right?