you can use a pre existing 168/328 setup as a SPI programmer, its 4 wires (not counting +5 and ground) and not rocket science, hell its an example in the IDE since post .18
your biggest issue is soldering down that high pitch, high pin count part and coming up with a board for it
for the price and effort you might as well just get a mega, here is a cheap one
http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,102760.0.html
I got one, its slow boating its way from china, but cr0sh likes it