> how do I make a table that looks like this:
>
> a:1    b:2    c:3    d:4    e:5
> f:6    g:7    h:8    i:9    j:10
>
> In other words, a 5x2 table.

The following will handle any number of rows:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:template match="nodes">
    <table>
      <xsl:for-each select="node[position() mod 5 =1]">
        <xsl:text>&#10;</xsl:text>
        <tr>
          <xsl:for-each select=".|following-sibling::node[position() &lt; 5]">
            <td><xsl:value-of select="concat(@name,':',.)"/></td>
          </xsl:for-each>
        </tr>
      </xsl:for-each>
      <xsl:text>&#10;</xsl:text>
    </table>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

$ saxon node.xml node.xsl
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><table>
<tr><td>a:1</td><td>b:2</td><td>c:3</td><td>d:4</td><td>e:5</td></tr>
<tr><td>f:6</td><td>g:7</td><td>h:8</td><td>i:9</td><td>j:10</td></tr>
</table>

I took your code and modified it just a little to what I am really
doing and it is only giving me one column tables:

XML:
<detailNVPSet>
  <detailNVP name="a">1</detailNVP>
  <detailNVP name="b">2</detailNVP>
  <detailNVP name="c">3</detailNVP>
  <detailNVP name="d">4</detailNVP>
  <detailNVP name="e">5</detailNVP>
  <detailNVP name="f">6</detailNVP>
  <detailNVP name="g">7</detailNVP>
  <detailNVP name="h">8</detailNVP>
  <detailNVP name="i">9</detailNVP>
  <detailNVP name="j">10</detailNVP>
</detailNVPSet>

XSLT:
<xsl:template match="detailNVPSet">
  <table>
    <xsl:for-each select="detailNVP[position() mod 5 =1]">
      <xsl:text>&#10;</xsl:text>
      <tr>
        <xsl:for-each select=".|following-sibling::node[position() &lt; 5]">
          <td><xsl:value-of select="concat(@name,':',.)"/></td>
        </xsl:for-each>
      </tr>
    </xsl:for-each>
    <xsl:text>&#10;</xsl:text>
  </table>
</xsl:template>

Output:
   <table>
     <tr>
       <td>a:1</td>
     </tr>
     <tr>
       <td>f:6</td>
     </tr>
   </table>