While searching I found this topic (http://forum.jquery.com/topic/alternating-style-on-autocomplete). Apparently the only way to change the style of the autocomplete box is by doing it through javascript:
also have a look at where you are appending the item to.
i came across this problem when i appended the autocomplete to an inner div, but when i appended the autocomplete to the body tag, the problem went away.
If you are able to enforce a higher z-index upon the autocomplete text input then this is the solution to your problem.
jQuery UI Autocomplete options list calculates its z-index value by taking the z-index of the text input it's being attached to and adds 1 to that value.
So you can give a z-index of 999 to the text input the autocomplete will have a z-index value of 1000