Which Algorithm for Sorting Alpha-Blended Stuff?

Just about every doc I''ve read about rendering mentions that alpha-blended models/images must be rendered in order from furthest from the view first to closest for the alpha blending to look right. What algorithm would you suggest for sorting the alpha-blended stuff? It seems like a radix sort might be good when there is a lot of alpha blended particles and models on screen. Also, should my engine store all rendering commands in a queue(render model X, render particle system Y, etc) of some sort so that it knows the orientation/translation/etc of the alpha-blended models and can render them after everything else, or is there some other method that should be used to handle alpha-blended models?