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I've got an iMac that was set up by Apple when we bought it. My wife and I have seperate logins. We share applications but are separate users. I have an Apple ID and use iCloud for the iMac, an iPhone and an iPad.

We're getting an additional iPhone for my wife. Can she set up her own Apple ID and thus iCloud and have it connect to her "section" of the iMac?

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I made a small edit to clarify your wording. For future reference, “partitioned” typically refers to splitting a hard drive into two or more separate segments. In this case you just have two different user accounts on the same drive. Hope that's helpful. – robmathers Sep 16 '12 at 16:46

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Yes, if you have separate user accounts (ie. there are two login options when you boot your machine), then each account can be associated with its own Apple ID for iCloud.

All preferences, documents and other customizations are individual to each user account. By default, Applications are shared (they get installed to /Applications), but you can install an application for just one user by installing it to the Applications directory within the users home directory.

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Separate user accounts is one method; however, you're going to want to use the same iCloud account to share purchases i'm sure. The answer is still yes. This is acceptable according to Apple (for families). Here's some additional reading on the subject:

FAQ Apple Support for iCloud

How to setup multiple iCloud accounts

Share iCloud apps, but not contacts

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