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Each nation's allotment in the pro race is decided by the nation's UCI ranking - I won't go into how that is determined. The top nations like Italy, Spain, Australia, Belgium and the sort can take 12 riders. Lesser nations can often take say 4 to 6 riders and this tiering goes all the way down to the lowly ranked who can take just one rider - like Argentina who will have Rebellin. If the nation is not ranked high enough they can not send anyone sometimes. The wildcard is that a rider from a lowly-ranked nation, say VInokourow the Kazakh, if ranked in the top 200 in the world, can earn a spot for himself no matter how low his nation is ranked. I may be off with the cutoff at 200 but you catch my drift.
The other wildcard is that the defending worldchamp and the olympic champ are each guaranteed a spot outside of their nation's allotment. So Italy will have 13 with Bettini getting an olympic spot and Spain will also have 13 with Astarloa getting the 13th as defending WC.
Now as for selection that is totally up to the national selectors. This is complicated by the fact that the worlds come at the end of a long season. Many riders are exhausted and make themselves unavailable for selection. The increasing importance of the Tour in cycling means that riders like Voeckler who have a great Tour have no need to do anything else in the year so do not hang around to stay in shape to do the worlds.
I hope this helps. Post any more questions.
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