File:HolyGrail.svg"File:HolyGrail.svg" by David Lark is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Holy Grail is a layout pattern that’s very common on the web. It consists of a header, a main content area with fixed-width navigation on the left, content in the middle and a fixed-width sidebar on the right and then a footer.

It is commonly desired and implemented, but for many years, the various ways in which it could be implemented with available technologies all had drawbacks. Because of this, finding an optimal implementation was likened to searching for the elusive Holy Grail.

Below example is taken from In Search of the Holy Grail

<div id="header"></div><div id="container">
  <div id="center" class="column"></div>
  <div id="left" class="column"></div>
  <div id="right" class="column"></div></div><div id="footer"></div>
body {
  min-width: 550px;      /* 2x LC width + RC width */
}
#container {
  padding-left: 200px;   /* LC width */
  padding-right: 150px;  /* RC width */
}
#container .column {
  position: relative;
  float: left;
}
#center {
  width: 100%;
}
#left {
  width: 200px;          /* LC width */
  right: 200px;          /* LC width */
  margin-left: -100%;
}
#right {
  width: 150px;          /* RC width */
  margin-right: -150px;  /* RC width */
}
#footer {
  clear: both;
}
/*** IE6 Fix ***/
* html #left {
  left: 150px;           /* RC width */
}

References: