rotating slideshow with linked images, on the homepage

I'm trying to set up a rotating (crossfade/slide) slideshow on the homepage, preferably in the header, displaying several case studies, with links to the posts/pages associated with the specific images. I've tried vSlider, and I can't get it to work in any Wordpress environment. It looks like we can't insert a working SWF file into the Atahualpa header to make this happen. Any ideas? (The URL is www.viewdesigninc.com)