Thanks for the help guys...
Here's my configure line:
./configure --sbin-path=/usr/sbin --with-http_ssl_module --conf-path=/etc/nginx --error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log --http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log --with-http_perl_module --prefix=/etc/nginx

I get a ton of "undefined reference" errors when it tries to compile the perl module (like "undefined reference to `perl_free'
objs/src/http/modules/perl/ngx_http_perl_module.o: In function `ngx_http_perl_xs_init'")
although I do have perl 5.8.8 installed. Do I need perl build headers? How do i install them?
This is a much more difficult task than I originally thought it'd be ;)