Selective Forum viewing?

The Mod Discussions forum is closed, so I posted it here.

Is there a way to make different classes of users? Like, Member, Officer, Mod, Admin?

The reason I ask (and better yet, the reason I need it) is that I would love to have a way to limit just a couple forums to a hand-picked bunch, but not have to give them moderator privileges. Regular users will still be able to read and post to the public forums, but the hand-picked group will be able to post to the Officers forum. Only Mods and Admins will be able to post to yet another set of forums.

I hope everyone understands this. I went through all the pages and could not find a mod to fit my description. The closest it came was the lockdown mod, but that would not allow newly registered members to post, which defeats the purpose.

Thanks much!

-Tim