Here's how to kiss a girl:
1) Always bring her to a private place
You don't want her to resist just because she's afraid of being judged by people. Eliminate that social pressure altogether. Also, the easiest way to bring her to a private place is to just ask. "Wanna come by my place?" or even "Wanna go somewhere else?" and then taking her hand and leading her works just fine.
2) Set yourself up next to her
While you go to a new private spot (hopefully your home, or a budget hotel if you're sleazy like me), immediately seize the opportunity to get physically close to her while you guys are still settling down. This removes the awkward part where you're trying to inch closer to her for no apparent reason. Alternatively, get up, go to the restroom, and then come back but sit your ass right next to her when you return.
In fact, if you can get her to LIE down from the outset, that's even better. I've always tried to do that, but it never works. I guess it's just weird.
3) Talk less or even just shut up
Silence is not as awkward as talking for the sake of talking. We don't want to have a conversational atmosphere. We want to ease into a "get physical" atmosphere. Talking is unsexy.
4) No sudden movements
Here's the thing: don't EVER try to copy the male protagonists in Hollywood movies who just suddenly go for the kiss; those are scripted obviously. That usually produces pretty bad outcomes in real life. This is where it gets tricky. Most guys who date around have obviously developed their own tactics to do this over dozens of trial and error attempts, but they'll never share their secrets with you. They'll tell you, "JUST DO IT" but all they really hope for is for you to jump in awkwardly and screw up big time so that they can laugh at you behind your back. Why should they devalue their hard work and experience anyway by simply giving away their tricks and inviting more competition.
Having said that, here's my tactic. I usually want to at least break the touch barrier, so I usually just ask for her hand. I cite lame excuses like I'm trying to see her hand size and read her palms, but once I'm done with the pretense I just continue holding on to her hand. Boom, touch barrier broken. I've used this over and over again because it works.
Once you have her hand, you can pretty much do anything to it. I usually just kiss it softly. You can even drag her closer to you, and that's what I usually do too. I drag her closer, I pretend to sniff her hair. No girl has ever resisted the hair-sniffing thing; they love to feel like and be told that they smell nice. Once you start getting close to her face, start with the ears... it drives them crazy. Sniff it a little, then start kissing it, while still holding her hand. Notice how you're not doing anything crazy like diving into it, but building it up step by step? The less radical your move, the less likely you are to encounter resistance.
If you do it right, she should at least moan really softly while you eat out her ear. Just slowly move down her face and towards her lips. From here, you should pretty much encounter no resistance. No girl is going to let you hold her hand and kiss her ear and face but reject a mouth wrestling match; it just doesn't add up. BAM, mission accomplished. You're welcome.
P.S. In fact, once you get good and confident, you can skip levels. You can go from bringing her to a private spot straight to kissing her immediately once you arrive (like Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone in "Basic Instinct"). Or you can skip the awkward hand-hair-ear-lips progression and just simply say, whenever you find a comfortable lull of silence, "You know what? I have the sudden urge to kiss you." I tried that before and her response was "Okay." Boom, NOW then you dive in. You've sign-posted her, she's prepared, and she has even given her consent. That's when you should JUST DO IT.
If you fail there, you really deserve to have a kissless night, but then again that's unlikely. Because any guy who has the balls to flat-out say that he wants to kiss a girl usually has the balls to flat-out kiss her after he tells her what he's going to do.
Now go get smooching bitches, gentlemen!