I found a cool way to iterate through a list and apply some styles, in this case with a bunch of social network icons! The sprite in question is a vertical one. If it was a grid, a matrix may be necessary to iterate in two dimensions. This all assumes all icons have uniform dimensions.

working-with-sprites.scss

// Setting Networks in sprite order from top to bottom
$networks: youtube, blogger, dribbble, email, facebook, twitter;

// Setting background sprite (separated for readability)
.social-icons li a { background: url(icon-sprite.png) no-repeat 0 0; }

// Iterating and multiplying!
.social-icons {
    li {
        // Set the icon height
        $iconHeight: 32px;
        
        // Iterate through the 'networks' array
        @for $i from 0 to length($networks) {                    
            &.#{nth($networks, $i + 1)} a {
                background-position: 0 ( -$i * $iconHeight );
            }
        }
    }
}