Using a chrooted 32-bit environment

[srs5694]

I've recently ordered an Athlon 64 system, and have a question about setting it up to handle 32-bit applications. I'll have lots of disk space, and have need to run many Linux distributions, so I was planning to set up at least one 32-bit Linux distribution in addition to at least two 64-bit distributions. I was wondering if it's possible to use a chroot environment, as described on this page, to provide access to a 32-bit distribution (either Gentoo or something else) while running 64-bit Gentoo? That is, install the 32-bit distribution as if I were running a regular x86 system, then mount it and chroot into it from Gentoo to run 32-bit programs? Would it be difficult to set this up to enable me to run 32-bit programs without chrooting into the environment, or would that just be too awkward for words? Any advice is appreciated; thanks.