The Blades have been overtaken at the summit by team of the moment Reading but they still looked an organised and efficient outfit as they completely stifled a Wolves team who went into the match on the back of two emphatic victories.
Neil Warnock punched the air at the final whistle, clearly happy at his players coming through one of the more difficult assignments on the long road towards promotion.
In truth, United survived very comfortably and the match was in injury time when Wolves managed their first on-target effort - a half-hit shot by Vio Ganea which bobbled harmlessly through to Paddy Kenny.
The keeper was otherwise superbly protected by the players in front of him despite the absence of both David Unsworth and suspended captain Chris Morgan.
Phil Jagielka dropped back into defence and assumed the armband and helped douse the fire of the home side in the first half.
George Ndah, back in the starting line-up after all his injury problems, was as dangerous as anyone and both he and Ganea saw efforts blocked superbly in the opening surge.
Ndah was again closed out of a promising situation in the second half while Ganea flashed a shot into the side-netting following a good link-up between Tom Huddlestone and Colin Cameron.
In a contest short on goalmouth activity, United had the better of the on-target attempts.
Neil Shipperley, having scored the winner when the sides met at Bramall Lane last month, brought a reaction save from Stefan Postma with a powerful shot after a free-kick.
The Dutchman also went down to his right to save smartly from Keith Gillespie, who also tested his handling with a low drive from 25 yards in the second half.
Wolves, urged by manager Glenn Hoddle to use their last two victories as the launch pad for a substantial winning run, slipped to seventh with this result.
They have the satisfaction of a third successive clean sheet but, at home to fellow play-off contenders Southampton in the televised lunchtime clash on Saturday, they will need to be much more creative if they are to make up significant ground on the top two.
Hoddle made a triple substitution with 15 minutes left by sending on Darren Anderton, Leon Clarke and Gabor Gyepes but his side could not raise the sort of head of steam needed to make the visitors' defence wobble.
The Blades may have dropped four points in two matches but Warnock will clearly see this more as one gained.