If the module doesn't have other dependencies, I have usually just downloaded it and then used
perl Makefile.PL LIB=/home/myusername/somedirectory PREFIX=/home/myusername/somedirectory
and that has always worked well. Things seemed to work better when I set both PREFIX and LIB. (I spent some time trying to figure out if both were really necessary and what the difference is; I think I was never absolutely certain...even though I did read the docs.) Using the CPAN module seems to be a recommended way, but I often had a lot of trouble with that.
chas