NIS and non-NIS question

[Vulpes Velox]

I have a box I want to rework to allow it to operate outside a NIS
enviroment when outside my LAN and use NIS and NFS when it is not. Any
suggestions on how to go about this?

I've got the file syncing and ect for ~/ figured out, but not figured
out how to get the NIS issue resolved.

So 

Any suggestions on how I would go about this?

So far I have been trying to get it to work using /etc/nsswitch.conf
with out any luck.