How to make my own .debs

[David Kanter <david_kanter@comcast.net>]

Is there a simple way for someone to make his own .deb from a downloaded 
tarball? I've read the "New Maintainer's Guide" but that doesn't seem to 
be geared toward the Average Joe who wants to make one or two informal 
.debs.

I'm not interested in building tarballs that are apt-get'able. For 
instance, I may want to build a CVS version of a program.

I've been using Slackware, where I: ./configure, make, make 
DESTDIR=$TEMPDIR install, then create my Slackware .tgz. Very simple. 
What is the Debian way of doing this?

I've noticed that some tarballs already have a debian/ directory. What 
is the build process when this occurs?

Thanks,
Dave