This article at Rediff.com provides tips for successful contrarian investing. To summarize these tips are as follows:

• Move against the market – this in the view of some entails buying and selling in the opposite direction the market is moving
• Courting unloved stocks – this entails picking stocks that are currently out of favor perhaps because of a view that it has strong long term fundamentals.
• Picking stocks in a snubbed sector – this is similar to “courting unloved stocks; however the focus here is looking at entire sectors that are being overlooked rather than the fundamentals of an individual stock.
• Turning a deaf ear to the news
• Thinking out of the box

Read more about how to make money from contrarian investing.