Getting last inserted SERIAL

Given this table:

CREATE TABLE test ( id SERIAL, example TEXT );

An implicit sequence is created as show in this message:

NOTICE:  CREATE TABLE will create implicit sequence 'test_id_seq' for 
SERIAL column 'test.id'

How do I retrieve the last 'id' that was inserted?  I have a process 
that does an insert and then needs the value of the id column of the row 
it just inserted so that that row can be used later in processing.  
First thought is "SELECT CURRVAL('test_id_seq');" but this assumes that 
there is only one connection inserting into this table, bad assumption.  
Next idea is the make 'id' an INT4 and set it explicitly with a value 
that I select from an explicitly created sequence.  This method seems a 
bit inelegant.  Any ideas?

TIA
Michael Garriss