Digital BW, The Print

I am a serious amateur photographer and have invested in quite a bit 
of computer/digital equipment in the past 6 months in order to set up 
a digital darkroom.  I'm happy with my color prints, but not so with 
my black and whites.  I would greatly appreciate any tips or sources 
of information to successfully print black and white photographs.  
I'm hoping to not have to buy a lot of new equipment, but obviously 
expect to have to buy different supplies (inks and papers)  and 
perhaps software.  Right now, I've been working from black and white 
negatives that I've scanned, but in the future I'd like to primarily 
shoot new photos using my digital camera.   Here is a synopsis of my 
current equipment set-up:

Nikon CoolPix 5000 Digital Camera
Nikon Super CoolScan 4000
PhotoShop 7 (I just bought this and am definitely not a PhotoShop 
expert yet)
Epson 1280 Photo Stylus Printer.

Thanks in advance