Customizing “Excertp” tag

I’m trying to add a “read more” link within the context of an excerpt tag – I can get what I need accomplished using this code:

<div class="entry">
      <?php the_excerpt();?>
      <a href="<?php echo get_syndication_permalink() ?>">Read  More</a></div>

But my problem is that the read more text ends up in another block level – and I want to style it so that it will run up against the auto generated ellipses of the “excerpt” tag.

The other issue is that I can’t use the “more” link, since the permalinks are being syndicated, and won’t include wp tags.

Any ideas would appreciated.