This is an old question, but this is another way, using jQuery to reuse the popover and to keep using the original bootstrap data attributes to make it more semantic:
<a href="#" rel="popover" data-trigger="focus" data-popover-content="#popover">
Show it!
</a>
<!-- Let's show the Bootstrap nav on the popover-->
<div id="list-popover" class="hide">
<ul class="nav nav-pills nav-stacked">
<li><a href="#">Action</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Another action</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Something else here</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Separated link</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
$('[rel="popover"]').popover({
container: 'body',
html: true,
content: function () {
var clone = $($(this).data('popover-content')).clone(true).removeClass('hide');
return clone;
}
});
Fiddle with complete example: http://jsfiddle.net/tomsarduy/262w45L5/