It usually is either a manner of separate stylesheets, or having a very fluid design that fits everywhere. Fluid designs don’t generally look too great on big screens, so media queries are popular. I have no idea what you can do about the HTML emails since email clients suck at CSS, so emails are almost always in tables… and tables stink on tiny screens since table rows don’t wrap and you probably had to set widths on the cells.
There’s a sticky thread on mobile design here in the Web Design forums… with a list of resources that may help you.
Also, be sure to check PPK’s Quirksmode.org site, as he’s been spending the last 2 years or something building up a representation of mobiles, mobile browsers and what works in them (and what doesn’t).