my wife and I are just starting to read up on this stuff. we are both college teachers but we are struggling to keep up with our gifted son. would anyone know of some books on gifted education curriculum development we could look into? thanks.

Depends on the kid and the parents but just for kicks look at:
Michael Clay Thompson (language arts book set, pricy & flighty)
Hands on equations (young kid's algebra manipulatives)
Calculus by and for kids (workbook)
Maria Miller- mammoth math (you tube + workbooks)
Aurora Lippor (monthly subscription-worked for NASA at 17, now does online science class for kids/ monthly subscription, pricy but real fun)
History's tough- Christian -story of the world. Non Christian usborn Internet linked world history encylopedia for overview. Supposedly history is three 4-year cycles- 1st to learn names& stories, 2nd to learn details, 3rd to analyze
Handwriting without tears (5th grade for non-babyish printing instruction)

Mothering.com has cirriculum forums, leans twords child-led
Well-trained mind forum has reviews, leans twords religious

Can help you more if you're more specific.
Schools:
Unschool
Waldorf
Reggio
Montessori

Private school
Boarding school
Early college

International bacularate schools (high-school)
Language immersion public schools (k-12)
Charter schools
Homeschool, with tutoring, with community college classes,
with part time public school

Online school:
K-12 (free public virtual school)
Aleks
Epgy

Online games:
Reading eggs
Math blaster
Starfall

Talent Search Summer camps:
Duke TIP
Johns hopkin CTY
Davidson THINK


Silicon valley private school:
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_17606226?nclick_check=1

Davidson academy public school for PG kids:
http://www.davidsonacademy.com/

MIT harvard community college early admission,

I've given it more thought and I have more ideas if I know what you need.

Foreign exchange
Clubs
Competitions

You might also want to check out some of the resources collected at this reddit thread.

Have you tried Prufrock Press?
http://www.prufrock.com/
Here's a sample page listing resources:
http://www.prufrock.com/showproducts.cfm?FullCat=93

One thing that worked for me though was to relax and let my son lead me where he wanted to go and decide what he wanted to learn.

Good luck!

Be open and flexible and very adaptable to change your mind very quickly. Don't believe in your ideas to the point you're married to them, always remember they're only ideas. Plans are made to help you anticipate how you'll respond to the facts over time, but reality always trumps any ideas any of us have. Meanwhile it's good to preview at the options.
<< (end philosophysing)>>

Ditto on lots of stuff here. I just want to add that I would personally emphasize critical thinking early with a gifted kid (actually with any kid). Materials by the Critical Thinking company are not a bad place to start IMHO.

I believe we also found this series of books to have some helpful tips:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0944583059/ref=wms_ohs_product_T2
(A lot of the wisdom in such books would probably occur to a natural teacher, but I think it's still valuable to explicitly consider this set of skills in their own right, as a cross-cutting concern for how all subjects are taught.)

Good a place as any to put this. More ways to spend $$$ y'all. I swear I was just looking at my amazon wish list to pick a few new books. The phantom tollbooth guy wrote "the line and the dot". The first reviewer there brought up the guy that wrote logo turtle programming, which of course I googled. Looks great like an animated version of the ms dos c prompt dot dot blink in green on black, only this time your command moves a turtle to leave x amount of dots in a line. But it looks like that was for some kind of windows before vista or whatever I have. The guy who wrote that wrote two books about computers becoming teachers back in the 80's and a book called mindstorms. Guess maybe he's connected to that Lego thing. Anyway, I ended up on this page where I found magnetic fractals for my fridge. I don't know why all I do is find more ways to spend money.
http://www.mathartfun.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/index.html

Khan academy, that's one I forgot.
IXL math. Two websites I see frequently mentioned.