first use EAC (forgot what it stands for (doh!), search on google) to rip the cd, then use lame + razorlame (gui frontend for lame) to encode the songs to your desired bit rate (i usually do 192-256kbps).
you can't encode songs to a higher quality, everytime you reencode songs you lose quality, that's why it's important to do it right the first time.