I've never placed emphasis on speed in my guitar playing... it's just not what i desire... But I do think that playing fast makes you a better player when you're playing slow... so I went ahead and tried to get as fast as I could without taking away from my overall goal of just being a good all around guitarist....

Go to www.ultimate-guitar.com and look around for Steve Vai's 10 hour guitar workout... It's an amazing set of exercises that he put together for an issue of Guitar World.... Do those exercises as much as you can each day!! Get a metronome and start off slow enough where you can do the runs accurately and comfortably... then speed up concentrating on accuracy each time... And get built up as fast as you can while you still can do it accurately...

The biggest thing as mentioned... is dedication and practice. You have to practice that stuff religiously if you expect to see improvements... If you do it a few days a take a few days off you'll just lose what you gained... So make a few hours a day free to where you can do that stuff over and over... and i promise within a week or so you'll notice drastic changes in not only your speed and accuracy but you'll also get some reallly mean chops straight from the repetoire of Steve Vai.