Danielle,
The short answer is yes, but rather than just giving you a "do this and it works", I think it will help if you understand how it works.
The "<" and">" are usually called "left and right angle brackets". Whatever is in between them is not displayed, but instead is interpreted as an instruction to the computer about how something is to be displayed. The set of angle brackets and what is between them is called a "tag".
Most tags are "containers" for content that is displayed and are instructions for how to display it. For this reason, tags are used in sets of a "start tag" and an "end tag". For example: This is how you would use a <sup>superscript</sup> tag to make only what is between the start tag and end tag appear as superscript. End tags are identical to start tags, except that there is a "/" at the beginning of them.
A very small number of tags do not have content - instead, they just do something at the point where they are used. The tag for line break is one of these. There is a sort of "shorthand" used to indicate that this one tag is both start and end. That is to put a "/" at the end of the tag. When you use the <br /> tag, it is an instruction to insert a new line (like pressing the ENTER key). When you want to skip a line, you need to use 2 <br /> tags.