Where can I change color of text in collapsed dropdown? For some reason there's different background and text colors in my dropdown menu when its collapsed.

When not collapsed I can change it with:

<!-- language: lang-css -->

.navbar-inverse .navbar-nav > li > a {
  color: #000;
}

But when collapsed it won't change. Am I missing something simple?

When the dropdown is open, it will have the open class added to the parent dropdown element. You can use that to selectively style a closed / open dropdown.

For example, take the following HTML:

<!-- language: lang-html -->

<div class="dropdown">

    <button data-toggle="dropdown" class="btn btn-primary dropdown-toggle">
        Action <span class="caret"></span>
    </button>

    <ul class="dropdown-menu">
        <li><a href="#">Action</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Another action</a></li>
        <li class="divider"></li>
        <li><a href="#">Separated link</a></li>
    </ul>

</div>

We can add a color property to the dropdown and then change the color property when open using the following CSS: *(you might have to use !important if the button is styled)

<!-- language: lang-css -->

.dropdown > button {
    color: yellow;
}
.dropdown.open > button {
    color: orange;
}

Working Demo in JsFiddle

Which will look like this:

If you only wanted to change the style while closed you could use the :not pseudo class selector like this:

<!-- language: lang-css -->

.dropdown:not(.open) > button {}