Background color in input and text fields

The best solution is the attribute selector in CSS (input[type="text"]) as the others suggested.

But if you have to support Internet Explorer 6, you cannot use it (QuirksMode). Well, only if you have to and also are willing to support it.

In this case your only option seems to be to define classes on input elements.

<input type="text" class="input-box" ... />
<input type="submit" class="button" ... />
...

and target them with a class selector:

input.input-box, textarea { background: cyan; }

You want to restrict to input fields that are of type text so use the selector input[type=text] rather than input (which will apply to all input fields (e.g. those of type submit as well)).

input[type="text"], textarea {

  background-color : #d1d1d1; 

}

Hope that helps :)

Edit: working example, http://jsfiddle.net/C5WxK/