After seeing the exchange on the little Sparkfun voltage translation board, I thought I would throw the following out:
TI (of all people 
makes a very nice little voltage translation device that offers several channels and even auto-direction sensing.
I've got some of these from Digikey for very little $'s. Part number: TxB0104DR
It's also in a fairly easy to deal with SOIC package.
Hope this can help someone.
-Keith