On my first dev job ever, I got sent to the client's office after studying CSS on my own for 2 weeks.
Client: "So, you're the great expert your manager told me about?"

You can study CSS ?! o:
I've never learnt CSS, I use this technic :
1. Type what you want in your favorite search engine.
2. First link is stack overflow.
3. Copy/paste
4. It doesn't work...
5. ....
6. Profit & repeat

Works great !