  We describe a new class of atom-laser coupling schemes which lead to
spin-orbit coupled Hamiltonians for ultra-cold neutral atoms. By properly
setting the optical phases, a pair of degenerate pseudospin states emerge as
the lowest energy states in the spectrum, and are thus immune to collisionally
induced decay. These schemes use $N$ cyclically coupled ground or metastable
internal states. We specialize to two situations: a three level case giving
fixed Rashba coupling, and a four-level case that adds a controllable
Dresselhaus contribution. We describe an implementation of the four level
scheme for $\Rb87$ and analyze the sensitivity of our approach to realistic
experimental limitations and imperfections. Lastly, we argue that no laser
coupling scheme can give pure Rashba or Dresselhaus coupling: akin to condensed
matter systems, higher order terms spoil the symmetry of these couplings.
However, for sufficiently intense laser fields the continuous rotational
symmetry approximately holds, making the Rashba Hamiltonian applicable for cold
atoms.
