Aligning text vertically within a <div> using CSS

I have a navigation bar that contains four images (side by side) as well as three text links. They all live within a <div> with the following properties:

#gNav {
width:768px;
height:19px;
text-align:left;
vertical-align:middle;
}


i need for the three text links to line up directly in the middle (vertically) of that <div>.

To achieve this in IE6 and NN+, I attach the following style to the text.

.nookum {
font-size:.9em;
vertical-align: 25%;
color:#FFFFFF;
}





I just learned that the vertical-align property is not recognized by IE5 and IE5.5, so in those versions, the text aligns at the bottom of the <div>.

Anyone know of any workarounds or other methods of vertically aligning text that will work in these two versions of IE?