Virginia,
To expand further on Dave's answer, these rules have changed in the past few years due to both the Rousey v. Jacowey Supreme Court case, and also the Bankruptcy Abuse Protection and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, providing general protection up to $1,000,000 (in the aggregate) for Roth and traditional IRA accounts.

However, additional protections apply for IRA amounts that were rollovers from most types of employer retirement plans (e.g., money you rolled over from an employer's 401(k) plan doesn't count against the $1,000,000 limit), and some states may provide their own rules with even more liberal protection than "just" the $1,000,000 limit.

Also, it's important to note that the protection limit really only applies once you've actually declared bankruptcy. Up until that point, a creditor may be able to still try to collect against your IRA account, depending on the protections that your state provides. From a practical perspective, the fact that the IRA may be protected in bankruptcy often comes out as a negotiating point when trying to settle debts - you don't want to declare bankruptcy but can to protect your IRA assets, and they usually just want as much money as they can get quickly and don't want you to declare bankruptcy, so a compromise often (but not always) can emerge from there.

I hope that helps a little!

Thanks for jumping in and answering this one Dave. Virginia, let us know if you have any other questions.

Thanks to the 2005 US Supreme Court decision Rousey v. Jacoway, up to $1,000,000 of Traditional or Roth IRA assets can be exempted from a bankruptcy estate.

For a time it was not clear whether Roths would enjoy that same protection, but this issue has since been resolved.