In this paper, a multiscale approach spanning atomistic and mesoscopic regimes to model the rheology of suspensions that have strongly interacting particles in highly viscous solvents is presented. The model suspensions studied here have 65% sucrose solution-a Newtonian fluid with a viscosity of 170 cP at room temperature-as the solvent phase with ceramic particles of sizes on the order of a few microms as the dispersed (solute) phase. A multiscale approach is proposed to quantitatively account for the effect of the properties of constituent materials on the bulk rheology of the suspension apart from the effect of hydrodynamic factors. A dissipative particle dynamics-type particle-based approach is adopted to which material-specific, mesoscopic force fields developed using molecular dynamics are fed. Issues pertaining to the handling of the vast spectrum of time and length scales present and an appropriate Gallilean-invariant thermostat for solvent dynamics are addressed and resolved. Numerical calculations compare reasonably well to experimentally measured viscosities up to reasonably high Peclet numbers (approximately 10(4)).