Java EE (Java Enterprise Edition) General Discussion

I am implementing the table model in an applet. This applet reads an xml file to construct the data model. How do i read an xml attribute:
ie - <column class="String"></column> and cast the string return to the appropriate class variable.

My Code so far:

public Class getColumnClass(int i)
{
Element node = (Element)columns.item(i);
Object xClass = node.getAttribute("class"); 'Need to convert string return to an actual class object.
return ((Class)xClass);
}

All help is much appreciated!!!!!!!