I\'ve got a custom component GameViewCanvas extends JPanel that will hold a number of tiles (800x800 textures). Now in GameViewCanvas I\'ve overridden the pai
Take a look at JXLayer. It does exactly what you've just asked.
There are some excellent examples by Piet Blok, which have, unfortunately, disappeared off the net. To this end, I've made them available here.
Take a look at the TestWrapped demo in the pbjar source. It is probably the (among) the best example.

ps - JXLayer is now officially part of Java 7, known as JLayer