I want to edit $PATH directly - how?

[leegold at speedymail.org]

Is there a way to edit $PATH ? I am using Ubuntu. I do not want anything
like:

export PATH=...additional paths..:$PATH

in  .bashrc, that's just causing me problems. 

I simply want to edit the path directly and I'll wait till a reboot to
have it stick. If there's no\ way to do this then how do I reset the
path to nothing and start over? The bashrc this is this additive thing
and just confuses me.

Thanks