Changing only some of the color components

I would like to know how I can change only one of the current raster color’s components. What I want to do is something like this:

<CODE>
glColorAlpha(0.5);
for (…)
glColorRGB(r, g, b);
</CODE>

I want to have a mesh that has it’s alpha level change with time, and to have this mesh in a display list, or something similar, so the geometry is rapidly sent to the card.