The command M-x list-colors-display will give you a list of all the 
colors that are available.

If you are using X Windows, you can put commands like these in your 
.Xdefaults file:

Emacs.Background: Black
Emacs.Foreground: White

You could put commands like these in your .emacs file:

(set-background-color "Black")
(set-foreground-color "White")
(set-cursor-color "White")
(set-mouse-color "White")

But these commands apply to only the current frame.  Commands that 
create additional frames would revert to the default colors.

--Greg

At 11:38 AM +0300 4/5/02, Antonis Matsakas wrote:
>Hi there,
>Can you tell me how can I set the background color in emacs? I am using the
>set-background-color command but when I restart emacs the color setting is
>gone.
>
>Regards, Andonis Matsakas
>SW Engineer