I'm not quite sure of the correct terminology for this, so forgive me if the title is inaccurate.
Within a scene, I'd like to bring up a window/display that will show a model and allow the player to control the view. My inclination is that this is a RenderTexture, is that right?
Depending on what sort of effect you want, it's likely that you don't need render-to-texture for this. (For example, you can create a 'window in window' effect simply by using multiple cameras with appropriate culling masks, depths, and normalized viewport rects assigned.)
Yes, that seems about right. It's a texture that can be rendered to (will display the viewport of a camera).
RenderTextures are a Pro-Only feature. You will have to set up a second camera in your scene and choose to render it to a texture by setting a Target Texture. Your user can interact with this "display" by manipulating the transform of this second camera.