Hi all - I've been working on this site:

http://www.ansaphone.com/

I want to make the background color in both the a: hover state and in the nav_here element "wider" - as in I want it to take up more space around the text, and leave less white space between the vertical lines. Any thoughts? As always, TIA!

you can't.
anchor elements <a> are inline elements that are only as wide as the content,

To change it you would need to have the anchor elements with display:block then "float" them with a set width inside a parent container.

Bummer. What if I used a background image instead of a background color? Would that do it, or would I still have to do the block, float combo?

same thing;

here's one way of achieving the look

<ul id="nav">
<li><a href="#">Link 1</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link 2</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link 3</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link 4</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link 5</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link 6</a></li>
</ul>

/* CSS code*/
ul#nav {
	color:green;
	}
ul#nav li {
	list-style-type:none;
	width:15%;
	float:left;
	border:0 none transparent;
	border-right:1px solid #000000;
}
ul#nav li a {
	display:block;
	text-align:center;
	background-color:grey;
	color:blue;
	border:0 none transparent;
}
ul#nav li a:hover {
	display:block;
	text-align:center;
	background-color:#00CC00;
	color:red;
	border-bottom:2px dashed black;
}

and it can be seen at
http://www.candsdesign.co.uk/article...tal-textlinks/