Toggle DIV with fade?

I want to be able to toggle a DIV on and off. I know I can use Javascript, but it doesn't look very nice when the DIV suddenly appears — basically it's too brutal for my taste.

I was wondering how I could make something where the DIV is toggled by some flash kind of stuff, let's say a whiteflash or whatever you call this. The page is mainly white so basically it would make the text and the pictures inside the DIV slowly appear.

Any ideas?