Got it.
Getting it to work required filling the container nested in navbar-inner with more than one unordered list of nav elements. This jsfiddle showed me the way http://jsfiddle.net/N6vGZ/4/
This code works:
<%= link_to "Cases", root_path, :class=>"brand"%>
<% if user_signed_in? %>
- <%= link_to "My Cases", cases_path %>
- <%= link_to 'Dash', dash_path %>
<% if current_user.has_role? :admin %>
- <%= link_to 'Admin', users_path, :id=>"Admin" %>
<% end %>
- <%= link_to 'Logout', destroy_user_session_path, :method=>'delete', :id => "Logout" %>
- <%= link_to ("Logged in as: " + current_user.name), edit_user_registration_path , :id=>"Edit account"%>
<% else %>
- <%= link_to 'Login', new_user_session_path %>
- <%= link_to 'Sign up', new_user_registration_path %>
<% end %>