Source: http://email.about.com/od/gmailtips/qt/et_whitelist.htm

From the page:

Sure Gmail‘s spam filter is mighty and good. When you visit the Spam view all you see is junk. All the mail you want to receive arrives in time.

What though if you want to be sure — sure that messages from your peers your friends or your family never end marked as spam by Gmail? That security is in a filter that’s simple effective and set up easily.

Whitelist a Sender or Domain in Gmail

To make sure Gmail never filters as spam mail from a certain contact or domain:

  • Follow the Settings link in Gmail.
  • Go to Filters.
  • Click Create a new filter.
  • Type the desired email address under From:.
    • To whitelist an entire domain (all mail from an address ending in “about.com” for example) type the just the domain name or the domain name preceded by ‘@’. To whitelist “about.com” for instance type “@about.com” (not including the quotation marks).
    • You do not have to create a separate filter for each address. Separate addresses with ‘|’ in the From: field instead. To whitelist both “[email protected]” and “[email protected]” enter “[email protected]|[email protected]” for example.
  • Click Next Step ››.
    • You can click Test Search before of course to make sure you did not mistype.
  • Make sure Never send it to Spam is checked.
  • Click Create Filter.