You need to use the android:background property , eg
android:background="@color/white"
Also you need to add a value for white in the strings.xml
<color name="white">#FFFFFF</color>
Edit : 18th Nov 2012
The first two letters of an 8 letter color code provide the alpha value, if you are using the html 6 letter color notation the color is opaque.
Eg :
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