redirecting after login

Hi, A site I'm working on requires a login screen where various individuals will log into the site and add information for their various departments. Rather than setup a different script for each department, I was hoping to create one script that would either accept or deny a login based on the username/password stored in a database, then based on the username/password - redirect the individuals browser to a URL. I've got the login part working perfectly, and I can turn the URL into a link on the page, but I'd rather have the script just automatically forward the person to the page they're login gives them access to. I've tried using header(), but since the redirection takes place about mid-script, it doesn't work. I've also tried using <meta> tag redirects, but those don't seem to accept the PHP/MySQL combo. Any ideas? Thanks -Tim