We use Contribute campus wide here at Smith College, but have just started
using more global css based style sheets. So while a department might be at
www.smith.edu/department/english/index.html, the the style sheet is at
www.smith.edu/css/global.css

How do I setup contribute cs3 to show only the styles in that location to
contribute publishers and writers?

One idea is to pop some kind of generic css file in each department website
location with an @import or something like that to get the global css and then
point contribute to that file. Would that work?

What you will have to do is set up a stylesheet for each group of users and
attach that stylesheets to your pages.

Then in Contribute you go to >Edit>Adminsiter websites>Users adn Roles>Edit
role settings>Styles and fonts.
Now check 'Show only CSS styles includes in this CSS file' and choose the
proper file.

Thanks. I just can't choose a style sheet outside of the contribute website no
matter which role I try. some kind of css file has to be in the website area
that contribute can see if I want to specify one.