I'd like to install software packages, similar to apt-get install <foo> but:

1. Without sudo, and
2. Into a local directory

The purpose of this exercise is to isolate independent builds in my continuous integration server.

I don't mind compiling from source, if that's what it takes, but obviously I'd prefer the simplest approach possible. I tried apt-get source --compile <foo> as mentioned here but I can't get it working for packages like autoconf. I get the following error:

dpkg-checkbuilddeps: Unmet build dependencies: help2man

I've got help2man compiled in a local directory, but I don't know how to inform apt-get of that. Any ideas?

UPDATE: I found an answer that almost works at http://askubuntu.com/a/350/23678. The problem with chroot is that it requires sudo. The problem with apt-get source is that I don't know how to resolve dependencies. I must say, chroot looks very appealing. Is there an equivalent command that doesn't require sudo?