Been trying for hours! I don't want ANY background (meaning, I want transparent background behind my buttons that I styled). I can get it to change from white to a different color, but I want it transparent and/or no background so the body background shows. help?

Hello Tina,
Please provide a link to your page, where we can check your navigation.

www.duenorthdesign.com/TEST/wp/index.html

Thank you! I'm one of those people who want to really customize the design of bootstrap using my own css. I'm just starting to get into this and I'm sure I have a lot to learn! Seems like it shouldn't be that difficult to get rid of that white background but I just can't figure it out!

Well, the easiest way to do this is to use your browser inspect tool and see which class(es) you need to edit.
In your case it is the that you need to add to your custom css file:

.navbar-default {
    background-color: transparent;
    border: #none;
}