Dude, I'm a total noob. I bought the vB software, registered the domain name(through HostGator), then signed up for their
Swamp Croc package.
Their service and support has been top notch!
My board has been up for less than a month but has grown rapidly, and there's never even been a glitch with the server. And the support staff and community(running vB, I might add) is awesome!