HVAC 3rd floor cooling problems

[Troy Sheets]

On a 3 story house (plus basement), how do you adequately cool the third floor if the air handler is in the basement? It's been my experience that most forced air systems never seem to adequately cool the 3rd floor in this case, at least on the really hot days. I've looked at the split systems but they've not caught on all that well in this area for residential and different/unknown is bad for resale, especially regarding HVAC, at least in my opinion.