Sorry let me clairify - my previous list was for setting up spot colors using Photoshop.
Using spot colors in Illustrator is easy - go to the top level menu Window>Swatch Libraries>Pantone and load them into Illustrator. Choose the color you want to use ( I suggest swithcing to list view via the flyout menu on the swatch pallette). Once you have selected your Pantone color, you will see it appear as a swatch in your project's Swatches pallette. You can distinguish the difference between a process and a spot by the little dot in the top of the swatch. Now you can create vector and set type in your spot color.
Instead of using a tiff, set up the art as I mentioned before in Photoshop, save as a DCS 2.0, and place that into the Illustrator file. You need to have it saved as this DCS 2.0 as that is the only way that I know of to have a proper spot and a preview for a bitmapped print graphic.
Be sure that your Illustrator project swatch pallette only contains the spot colors that you want to print with - delete any other spot colors that appear before sending out for print, as any color you select in the pantone swatch library will be automatically imported into your project swatch pallette even if you delete all artwork that used the unwanted color. To convert a spot to CMYK double click on the instance of the swatch in the project swatch pallette and change to CMYK, then you will notice that the dot will be gone from the swatch.
Hope that helps!
Oh yeah and always write the pantone number in the margin of your hard copy that you hand off with your files so that your project is not delayed by pressmen!
btw maybe you might want to think about using InDesign 2.0 or *shudder* Quark if you plan to do more print work in the future