lucy24 - 9:05 pm on Mar 4, 2012 (gmt 0)

Oh, oops. You want to divide the page into three pieces. This is not a problem. The easiest way is to make one background for the whole page, and then make headers and footers with their own background(s). If the header and footer backgrounds are non-transparent, it doesn't matter if there's another background behind them.

Now all you have to deal with is the vexed "sticky footer" issue if there is any possibility that your body can ever be shorter than a user's browser window.