In the readme for installation instructions, i am prompted to:

9) Add a new user menu item as a Link-URL and point it to
index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=usersList
(this will be the searchable users list).
Note: if you make the menu being the first of the main menu it will
become the site's homepage.

However, I have no idea if this function still exists when creating a new user menu item in J!1.5. As far as i can tell I cannot create a menu item that links the that mentioned point. How does everyone else install CB 1.1 on J!1.5? Pardon my ignorance, I am extremely new to Joomla and even newer to CB...

Just follow the instructions and refer to the long list of bugs under the 1.1/Bugs thread. Or, preferably upgrade to 1.2 and skip the bugs.