Old Time Machine Backup onto New OS?

Last year I replaced my MacBook's HD, and decided to finally put Snow Leopard on the new one.

I had been using Leopard, and that's what my most recent TM backup was of.

I got a message saying that there was not enough room on the drive to install the TM backup, even though it was a much larger drive than the old one.

After some research, I learned that I could not install an old TM backup on to a new OS.

So I reinstalled Leopard, and my backup, and then never got around to Snow Leopard.

And now, thanks to an accident, I'm going through this all over again.

So is there a way to install my Leopard backup on to a Snow Leopard machine, or do I need to install Leopard first?