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Wednesday's tutorial touched on [how semantically correct XHTML helps][4] search engine spiders "read" your pages, but spiders aren't the only reason for semantics. Semantics also help people with disabilities by making an elements context clear to assistive devices like [JAWS][6].
But while semantics are a good start, they aren't the end of the story when it comes to accessibility. There is in fact an entire [W3C spec][5] on accessibility and there are many ways that you can improve your sites accessibility (note that these tips are good whether you're using HTML or XHTML).
The best and most comprehensive tutorial I know of that deals with accessibility is Mark Pilgrim's [Dive Into Accessibility][1], which isn't actually a tutorial it's an entire book downloadable as html or pdf as well as readable online.
Another excellent book-length tutorial is Joe Clark's [*Building Accessible Websites*][3].
While I highly recommend Pilgrim's book, if you don't feel you have the time for something that long, there's also an excellent tutorial on A List Apart called [*What Is Web Accessibility*][2], that will get you acquainted with the basics and point you to a number of other helpful tutorials.
[3]: http://joeclark.org/book/sashay/serialization/ "Building Accessible Websites"
[2]: http://alistapart.com/articles/wiwa "What Is Web Accessibility?"
[1]: http://www.diveintoaccessibility.org/ "Dive Into Accessibility"
[4]: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/01/tutorial_o_the__1.html "Tutorial 'O The Day: XHTML Semantics"
[5]: http://www.w3.org/WAI/ "W3C Accessibility Initiative"
[6]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_Access_With_Speech "Wikipedia definition - JAWS"
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