SQL & PL/SQL

Without going to Advanced Queuing, is there a
more straightforward way to implement a work
queue?

As an example of what I'd like to do,
I have a table with rows, each row identifying some
work that has to be done.

I would like to have multiple processes pick up the
first available "unlocked" row, and select it for update.
When the work is done the process would update the row and
mark it done, and commit it, etc. If the process fails,
it would rollback and that will be the right behaviour
for my needs.

I think a SQL-server equivalent of the READPAST hint
to ignore row-locked entries would work nicely for what
I want to do, but I'm interested in other solutions, etc
for this problem?

Thanks,
-kb