I looked at quite a few small tripods last year and my pick of the bunch was the Slik Sprint 150 (http://www.adorama.com/SLS150WSBH.html?kbid=12417). It offered the best "bang for the buck" in terms of stability, flexibility, size, weight and cost.

With any small tripod you are going to have to come to some compromise between weight, height and stability. If you don't extend the legs, stability of any tripod will increase, so you have to also balance shooting height against stability.

There are literally dozens (if not humdreds) of choices, but you have to first figure out how much you are willing to spend, how much weight you are willing to carry, how high it has to extend and what kind of load it has to handle in order to narrow down the selection. The  Slik Sprint 150 was my pick for an inexpensive tripod weighing under 2.5 lbs, extending to >60", capable of supporting a DSLR with a small/medium lens and it costings under $60.