Problem with 20d and lighting setup

I just recently purchased some studio lighting and I've had a problem getting it to work with the 20d. When I go to focus the camera it is firing the studio lights before i snap the picture. The lights will fire and then i will go to take the picture and only the flash on my camera will go off because the studio lights have not recharged. This happens if I have the lights plugged into the camera and also if I am firing the lights from the flash on my camera. Any input?

You're using an optical slave, and the E-TTL's pre-flash is triggering the strobes. Your options are:
1) use a manual strobe on-camera (or disable E-TTL if you're using a 430EX, 550EX, or 580EX). You'll need to set light output and camera settings all manually, too. A flash meter will help here.
2) get a "digital slave", which will ignore the pre-flash and fire on the "real" flash. This may throw off your exposure, as E-TTL will see a lot of light it wasn't counting on.
3) Use Flash Exposure Lock to fire the pre-flash and wait (shutter partially depressed) to lock in the reading; then when the external flashes have recharged, take the picture. Not so good if you're trying to capture a fleeting expression.

Ok, could I use the on-camera flash instead of my 580EX or does that have a pre flash too? I turned the red-eye reduction off on my camera because I thought that was firing the preflash but I guess not?

On-camera flash does E-TTL too, so you can't turn off the pre-flash on it. The 580 does have a manual setting which won't pre-flash.

Ok thanks!

One more question... what setting should I use on the mode dial of the camera itself?

Manual, so you can set a slow-enough shutter speed to sync and still get the necessary aperture.

Great, thank you for your help, I'll try this when I get home.