Can't get any alpha other than full opaque to work

Hello,

This is really stupid… But I can’t get any DisplayObjects to take an alpha setting… They remain full opaque no matter what- if I set alpha=.5, 0.0, etc. I’m using Sprites, but I’ve tried with TextFields and a couple other things…

Is there any setting, or anything about the containing object that would prevent me from setting alpha? I am really confused on this.

 
           subItemHolder=new Sprite( );    
            subItemHolder.alpha=.50; //Remains fully opaque.