You may try to use ng-click to set the selected item and apply a conditional css class with ng-class:
<ul> <li ng-repeat="item in list" ng-class="{'highlight': model.selected == item}"> <button ng-click="model.selected = item">Select</button> </li> </ul>
In your controller:
$scope.model = { selected : null };
We need to use an object to hold the selected item so the scope is shared for every items of the ng-repeat, otherwise, it would exist for every items, therefore multiple items could be selected.
DEMO: http://plnkr.co/edit/EdrD7MvesW3xn9C9c6fk?p=preview