wrapper: text-align:center provides horizontal centering and container has a set height inner span: forces browsers to allocate inner spacing (height) within which the image can be vertically centered img and span: vertical-align:middle and display:inline-block sets up the needed layout works (12/2010): IE8, IE7(compatibility view/emulation), chrome 8.0, ff3.6, ff4b, safari5.0 display:table-cell doesn't work in IE7 so this gives a solution for all of the above.