Confused Kanji Compounds..

I've searched all over for discussion on this particular issue with kanji learning, but I've found next to nothing that helps me. Please don't go rabid on me if it's a stupid question. =X

How does a kanji learner go about learning kanji compounds when you don't know one of the kanji characters in the compound?

For instance, say I'm at the very beginning and I learn my first kanji: 一
I learn all of the readings and meanings of the kanji, and then there's a list of useful kanji compounds that involve that kanji.
So, one of the compounds is for instance 一月
Do I go and immediately learn 月 at the same time for the sake of memorizing the compound? Do I wait until I have already learned both kanji characters in order and then go back to learn the compound?
Basically I want to know: what is the most efficient way to go about memorizing compounds?

Sorry if it's obvious and I'm just a bit slow, but either way help would be appreciated. ._.

I think the order would be that you learn the *word* "January" first - which would be "ichi-gatsu" if you are using a romanized textbook, or いちがつ if you are using a textbook that starts you off with hiragana.

Then after you get going with the grammar for a while, there comes a time when you get interested in (or the textbook leads you into) learning kanji. Then you will know that "ichi-gatsu" was written with two kanji: "one, first," and "month, moon." 一月.

Then you might later learn that 一 can have different readings depending on the compound, for example with 一人 (one person - "hito-ri"), and the same thing for 月, at that time you can look up these kanji in your kanji reference book for other readings or other compounds that use that particular reading.

You don't have to memorize all readings for one kanji or all compounds in one go - you will learn to look up things and acquire those kanji as your vocabulary builds up (though it does require some efforts for sure!). Have fun learning! :)

So, I should use lists of vocabulary in kana, memorize the meaning and pronunciation in kana, then learn each of the kanji used in the word(though only the aspects of the kanji that apply to the word, until I come across the kanji again used differently in another word, and then memorize that, and so on)?

AHH, this is going to be more complicated than I thought. xD

To clarify, I've already learned Hiragana and Katakana, learned a good deal of vocabulary using kana, and begun to tackle grammar with a book that uses kana all with separate books/resources...
For Kanji I've just begun using White Rabbit Press Kanji flash cards, which for each kanji list:
on front- the main kanji, 6 or so compounds that use the kanji, stroke count, stroke order diagram,
on back - the onyomi and kunyomi, the six or so compounds in kana and the meanings in english

I guess I could pick them out of order to use in according with a kana vocabulary list obtained elsewhere?

Anyway thank you for the response!

One thing I find it helpful to do is not really memorize the kanji with it's readings, but memorize the readings with the combinations of the kanji, so you don't get as confused when you try to remember which reading goes with which kanji.

Other than the first few hundred simple kanji, I consider it a bad idea to learn kanji by themselves as very often the meanings are quite abstract and even knowing that meaning will not help you with the meaning of the compound. I only study kanji as parts of complete words, never in isolation.

Now that I've attempted to do it as suggested- learning kanji on the basis of actual words rather than just trying memorize characters with all of their on-yomi and kun-yomi, meanings, etc. all in one go- kanji learning has become MUCH less overwhelming. :D
Thank you all so much for your tips and suggestions, now I feel much less like my brain is going to implode, haha.

Also, I have witness this to help: Relate radicals. Once you've learned the meaning a character, it's likely you'll identify it in other characters when it's part of it as a radical. Think of what that radical means, and how it relates to the meaning of the entire character.
Example:
言う(iu) = to say
五 (go)= 5
口 (kuchi) = mouth
put it together becomes
語(go) = Language
You could imagine that anything with 言 as a particle will involve something with speech, say, language, etc in its definition. With 語 you can imagine that speaking a "language" requires you to speak with various (五) methods and ways (口).

This isn't with kanji characters, but it's the same concept:
Kinoko means mushroom or fungus. My teacher used a way to memorize it as "Ki" (tree) "no" (possessive particle) and "ko" (child), resulting in "Child of Tree" which you could creatively consider a mushroom.