Carbon nanotubes have drawn considerable interest because of their unique physical and electric properties; carbon fibers have the highest strength of any known material as well as the highest thermal conductivity. They can also function as semiconductors. Thus, they have diverse potential uses, ranging from composite materials in automobiles and armor, as well as microelectronics. A desirable property for handling and processing substances is solubility in common solvents. Thus, there is considerable interest to develop convenient methods to obtain sustainable dispersions of carbon nanotubes which are insoluble as such in common solvents. The rate of sedimentation of commercially available and well characterized single and multi-wall carbon nanotubes in various solvents has been monitored in this study by UV Vis spectroscopy. Ten organic solvents have been used: acetone, toluene, chloroform, cyclohexane, dichloromethane, diethyl ether, dimethylformamide, ethanol, methanol and tetrahydrofuran. The effect of added surfactants (alcohols and amines) on the rate of sedimentation has also been studied. The length of the carbon chain (n) of the surfactant has also been varied, with n equals 5 to 12. Only some solvent/surfactant systems display improvement in sustaining the dispersion. This ability depends both on the solvent/ surfactant chosen as well as the number of carbons in the surfactant. The stability of the dispersion as a function of the number of carbons follows a cubic function with excellent correlation coefficients and a minimum for eight carbons. Tentative explanations using the physical properties of the solvent and surfactants are discussed.