If you are willing to work the investment as opposed to "put the money there and forget about it" there are many options. Of late I am doing very well with Fidelity mutual funds in automotive, construction/housing, Japan, biotech, defense and transportation. But, I watch them every day and do a quarterly review and adjust where necessary. For the former scenario I would go with a Fidelity Freedom fund indexed to the year you would like to start spending the money.
