JQuery :: Image/icon Ajax Toggle Updating Database?

I'm building a site that uses some jQuery but at this point I haven't had to get my hands dirty in the code. I'm hoping to get some pointers on how to best approach this problem, or if a plug-in exists to point me that way. I'm anticipating I'll need to build the code though because of the specific nature of the issue. I have a two very complex MySQL data trees that need to cross reference. To handle the cross referencing I simply have a third table that links the ids of the large tables together. That way I can join data via the linking table. This is all working and established. What I need to do is allow the admin user to navigate through one tree from within the context of a particular element from the other tree and click a toggle icon (tick or cross) to create or delete the cross reference in the linking table. Traditionally I would perform this task using forms but I want the user to be able to make these changes on the fly without needing to reload the page. I also want to stop further toggling until the update or delete has been completed.