true transparent backgrounds w/ Photoshop

["Amanda Baird" <abaird -at- mail -dot- open-softech -dot- com>]

Checked the archives and found stuff pertaining to paint shop pro, but not
Photoshop.  Here's the dilemma:

I have a .psd layered file that I need to end up as a GIF with a transparent
background.  The image is a beveled WHITE button with a line of red text
underneath the button like a caption.  The button has text on it, but it's
background is white and the beveled edges are basically shades of gray.  The
red "free-floating" caption text underneath is red with a gray shadow
effect.  So it's a white button with red text underneath.  The red text has
no background color.

My company is going to be sending out this image as a gif for other
companies to put on their websites, which may have white, black, gray,
green, patterned, etc. backgrounds.  But in Photoshop, I seem to HAVE to
choose a "default" image transparency color, usually that color is gray, but
then when viewed on say a white or a colored background, the image has a few
pixels that are gray around it and the red text has gray too.  If I choose
white as the default transparency, I get a white border when viewed on a
color other than white.  When I export it and de-select the background
myself, either I delete the white in the button (which I DON'T want) because
the background color I am deleting is also white, OR if I fill in the
background layer with a diff. color before I export it and then deselect the
background color, there are always pixels left over of the background color,
because the button is beveled and the text is shadowed, so the edges of the
image are blended into the background, but I want a transparent background!!

Is it possible to make a gif in Photoshop with a TRULY transparent
background, one that will allow the image to "float" I guess over any
background color?

Thanks, sorry for the length, it's just hard to explain in writing!  I hope
someone can help me with this.