Abstract. We propose efficient preconditioning algorithms for an eigenvalue problem arising in quantum physics, namely the computation of a few interior eigenvalues and their associated eigenvectors for the largest sparse real and symmetric indefinite matrices of the Anderson model of localization. We compare the Lanczos algorithm in the 1987 implementation by Cullum and Willoughby with the shift-and-invert techniques in the implicitly restarted Lanczos method and in the Jacobi-Davidson method. Our preconditioning approaches for the shift-and-invert symmetric indefinite linear system are based on maximum weighted matchings and algebraic multilevel incomplete LDL T factorizations. These techniques can be seen as a complement to the alternative idea of using more complete pivoting techniques for the highly ill-conditioned symmetric indefinite Anderson matrices. We demonstrate the effectiveness and the numerical accuracy of these algorithms. Our numerical examples reveal that recent algebraic multilevel preconditioning solvers can accelerative the computation of a large-scale eigenvalue problem corresponding to the Anderson model of localization by several orders of magnitude.