What Kind Of Equipment Do I Need To Take A Professional Photo And How Do I Take A Professional Photo?

Here is some general advice:
As others previously said, lighting is important. Try to make sure that there are no harsh shadows, or at least as few as you can manage. I'm assuming that you will not have control of the lighting positions, so try throwing some diffusion material (frosted shower curtains work well) over the light. My advice would actually be to take them outside during bright daylight, and put them in the shade under a tree. This provides very good even lighting, and you can just put your backdrop on the tree. If you can't or choose not to take your background outside, and you have an slr (interchangeable lenses) you can make the background blurry by putting on a zoom lens (even moderate zoom should work), and opening the aperture. The aperture will be represented as a number such as 2.8 or 8. This would give you a pleasing image, with pretty good lighting, and an attractive background. If you email me more info about your camera and the look you're going for, I would be happy to help you out. You can email me at xor-logic@hotmail.com

An expensive camera, lots of lights, and a computer for any editing to make it look more professional.

I am pure amateur photographer. But ONE THING I notice about pro photos, there is NO SHADOWS anywhere in the picture. They do this by using little reflective umbrellas that a strobe light flashes into, and then the light bounces back from the inside of the umbrella, toward the person being photographed. They put these umbrellas all around the people being photographed so the photos look amazingly wonderful.
Hope this helps.