Programming :: Mod_rewrite Remove Sub-directories From URL?

I have tried this a million ways, got it to work once but it didn't work sitewide for some reason. I have a url: [URL] and I want it to be found by going to: [URL] I am using this

Code:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/agents/tp/
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/?$ agents/tp/$1/index.php [L]

and have also tried something as basic as

Code:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/agents/tp/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ agents/tp/$1/index.php [L]

I keep getting "The requested URL /JoeAgent/ was not found on this server." why it's not working?