[StueyT]

First thing is first, learn Hiragana and Katakana. Do not go any further without being able to do this! And in my experience, learn kanji from the go. Look on amazon for 'Basic Kanji Book Vol1', its a pretty awesome book.
There are 2000ish kanji that are considered the standard 'Joyou' kanji. I don't mean learn them all straight away, I mean it takes Japanese school kids their whole school lives to dig them in, but learn kanji at a pace alongside your grammar, vocab and other reading materials.
Personally, I started learning Japanese at home in October and I've got about 50 kanji dug into my head, with passive knowledge of a few others. It's not as difficult as they appear, it's just that there is so many!

I'd also look at aquiring 'Pimsluer's Japanese' audio training. And try Live Mocha, which is a free online equivalent, if not better version, of Rosetta Stone