Xbee Madness

My first problem was the XBee received power but its power light was not on. Then I grounded the second ground rail and the LEDs lit up. I could not get the Mini programmer to talk to the XBee. Then Jamie suggested that it was communicating at 5 volts when the XBee understands 3.3 volts. I powered it down using a resistor and a LED but the power was too low (1.7 volts). I asked around and the problem was the USB mini programmer cannot both power and send messages at 3.3 volts. I have now connected a standard Arduino to communicate and the Mini Programmer to power it. And...it still does not work. I played with the baud rate and figured the Xbee was set to 115200 instead of 9600. Now I get a prompt but I still cannot send.