a ver si este ejemplo te sirve.
Código:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Test</title>
<style type="text/css">
<!--
div#contenedor {
width: 637px;
background-color:#333;
margin: 50px auto;
padding:25px;
overflow:hidden;
}
div#contenedor ul {
float:left;
background-color:#CCC;
padding: 20px;
position:relative;
top: 0;
left: 50px;
}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="contenedor">
<ul>
<li>aaaaaaaaaaaaaa</li>
<li>bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb</li>
<li>cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc</li>
<li>ddddddddddddddddddddddddddd</li>
</ul>
</div>
</body>
</html>