Cat-5 ethernet cable, and I'll assume thats what you are referring to here (Typically thats a cable with a connector on the end that kinda resembles a phone jack) has 8 wires, the normal assignment for each pin/wire in a 10/100 MB ethernet cable is:

pin 1, white/green, transmit+
pin 2, green, transmit-
pin 3, white/orange, receive+
pin 4, blue, unused
pin 5, white/blue, unused
pin 6, orange, receive-
pin 7, white/brown, unused
pin 8, brown, unused

The unused wires get used if you are running Gigabit ethernet.

YOu can check out these sites for a more detail explanation of the wires, and the other variations of uses, for example power over ethernet, or cross over cables.

http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ethernetcables.html
http://www.trangobroadband.com/infobase/cat5-ethernet-cable-pin-out.aspx

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