>I'm working on a small app that has contacts down the left side, similar to this http://www.plaxo.com/tour
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>The problem is that I'm importing close to 2000 contacts, and it's taking forever to load. I need suggestions on how to do this.

So are you writing a web app ?
IAC pulling 2000 items into a list, apart from being slow, will also not be much use to a user. Even pulling by first letter would average more than 100 items - probably still too much. Without more info it's hard to know what to suggest - except using a straight-forward user entered search value and/or loading say 50 at a time with a previous/next option .....