[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] nvrMind:
[highlight]IMPORTANT! DATA LOSS![/highlight] For security purposes, this process will delete everything on your phone, including everything on the internal sd card! If you haven't backed up, do so now! Any pictures, videos, and documents not backed up will be unrecoverable...

First things first... This is mostly adapted from this guide by loveubuntu. Many Thanks!

[highlight]WARNING:[/highlight] Rooting your device probably violates your provider's acceptable use policy. It also voids your warranty. If you damage your device while following this guide, you are responsible!

That said, this process worked for me, without any problems.

[size=+2]Install the Java SDK[/size]

You may not need to do this if you're on a version before 10.7 (Lion)... I'm not sure.

You'll need an Apple Developer account, but they're free... Go to the Apple Developer Download page. The current version for Lion at the time of this writing is Java for OS X 2012-003.

Download and install.

[size=+2]Download and Setup Android SDK[/size]

Download the Android SDK. Make sure you get the one for Mac OSX.

Open the file to unzip it. For convenience, move the folder to your home directory. Open terminal and use the following command. You can leave terminal open... We'll be using it again, and again, and again...

mv Downloads/android-sdk-macosx ~

[size=+2]Get Connected[/size]

On your phone:

Open Settings | Developer Options

Turn on USB Debugging

Plug your phone into your mac.

In terminal, on your mac, run the following commands:

cd ~/android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools
adb devices

You should see your phone's serial number. If not, make sure everything is installed correctly and your phone is connected correctly.

[size=+2]Download Files[/size]

Download the latest Touch Recovery from ClockworkMod. Be sure to get the one for Google Galaxy Nexus (Verizon).

Download su.zip.

[size=+2]Unlock your Phone[/size]

Here's the part where you void your warranty and wipe your phone, so... here come the warnings again...

[highlight]IMPORTANT! DATA LOSS![/highlight] For security purposes, this process will delete everything on your phone, including everything on the internal sd card! If you haven't backed up, do so now! Any pictures, videos, and documents not backed up will be unrecoverable...

[highlight]WARNING:[/highlight] Rooting your device probably violates your provider's acceptable use policy. It also voids your warranty. If you damage your device while following this guide, you are responsible!

Turn off your phone (Are you sure you've backed up everything important on your phone???).

Hold Volume Up and Volume Down while pressing the power button to turn your phone on. Let go of the power button when the phone vibrates, but keep holding the volume buttons until you see stuff on the screen.

You should now see a big arrow and some text on your screen. The bottom line is the lock state. Congratulations, you're in the bootloader.

[highlight]Are you sure you backed everything up? Last chance...[/highlight]

If you're not plugged into your mac still, hook it up and run the following command in your terminal.

fastboot devices

You should see your phone's serial number, just like you did with adb (which doesn't work in the bootloader, of course).

[highlight]Okay, this is really your last chance. Backup any data you don't want to lose. The next command will erase everything.[/highlight]

Run the following command in terminal:

fastboot oem unlock

Use the volume up button on your phone to select YES and press the power button to accept.

Including the following, since I probably did it... Not sure if it is entirely necessary:

Use the volume up to change the value appearing in the arrow to recovery and press the power button to accept. You are taken to laying down android with a red triangle. This is the stock recovery. Now carefully press the volume up, volume down, and the power button to get to a menu. Choose wipe data and factory reset. 2 things: I had a hard time getting to the menu. Do it a few times and try pressing the power button JUST a fraction of a second earlier than the 2 volume buttons. Also wiping and resetting takes a few minutes, be patient.

[size=+2]Flash CWM Recovery[/size]

Well, if you made it this far, you've already voided your warranty and wiped your phone... why stop now?

Turn the phone off (pull battery if necessary). Boot back into the bootloader by holding the volume buttons and power again (see previous step, if you forgot how). Connect to your mac, if you're not still connected and run the following in terminal:

fastboot devices

See your device? Great! Now let's flash ClockworkMod Recovery. If you haven't moved it, it'll be in your downloads directory. You can run the following from terminal (the version may have changed, so double check):

fastboot flash recovery ~/Downloads/recovery-clockwork-touch-5.8.0.2-toro.img

[size=+2]Get Root[/size]

You're still in the bootloader, right? If not, get there and use the volume keys to select recovery. Press power to open it. Yay! CWM Touch! FTW

Okay, reboot and allow Android to create the folder structure it needs. When you get to the welcome screen, pull the battery to shutdown and boot back into the bootloader (you should be a pro at this by now). Use the volume keys to select recovery and power to get there.

If you're not connected to your mac, do so and run the following:

adb push ~/Downloads/su.zip /data/media

Yep, adb works in recovery... This just transfers the file to the root of your internal sd card.

Now run:

adb reboot recovery

Now use the menus to install su.zip. Choose zip from sd card, su.zip, etc... oh yea, and it's touchscreen.

Congratulations! You now have full administrator permissions on your phone.

[size=+2]Install Helpful Tools from Play Store[/size]

Boot your phone normally and go through the whole activation and getting started process.

Then install some tools that will help, now that you have a rooted phone. Just open the play store and search for rom manager. This is made by ClockworkMod and it works great with their recovery. Next you'll want to search for titanium backup. This will allow you to backup application data to help make loading new roms a little less of a hassle. There are free and paid versions of both of these apps. The paid versions give you more functionality, as well as, no ads.

Last, install solid explorer beta (or some other file manager). We need it for the last step.

Also, while you're in the play store, go ahead and update superuser if there is an update available.

[size=+2]Delete recovery.sh[/size]

Your phone may have a file called recovery.sh, which will flash the default recovery on reboot if you don't get rid of it.

Open Solid Explorer Beta.

Tap the Jump button at the bottom of the screen. Then Device and System Root.

Open the system folder, then open etc.

Scroll down and look for recovery.sh. If it doesn't exist, no worries... If it does, tap and hold on it, then either rename or delete it, whichever your more comfortable with.

That's it! Your unlocked and rooted. You can enjoy many benefits from just this process.

However, if you want a real benefit. Find a nice ROM and flash it using ROM Manager or by rebooting into the recovery if you need to install 2 zips, like most require. I'd like to recommend TeamBAMF.