Ampersand conversion for RSS feeds

System

I'm working on a form to create RSS feeds, and have been stymied by the fact that XML does not like the &, which as we all know, is used in many links. The form I'm trying to create is fairly simple, with text fields for all the RSS item tags. This part is fine, it is just when I try to generate that the RSS reader wants to see & otherwise it kindly informs me that a semicolon was expected.

Does anyone have a solution on how to convert '&' to '& amp;' as data is being read into a tpl? I've tried several things without success so far.

Thanks in advance for any help offered, or light shed.