 <p>In addition to cellEditor it is necessary to do the cellRenderer to paint the combobox in the cell, look at this:</p> <pre><code> public void example(){ TableColumn tmpColum =table.getColumnModel().getColumn(1); String[] DATA = { "Data 1", "Data 2", "Data 3", "Data 4" }; JComboBox comboBox = new JComboBox(DATA); DefaultCellEditor defaultCellEditor=new DefaultCellEditor(comboBox); tmpColum.setCellEditor(defaultCellEditor); tmpColum.setCellRenderer(new CheckBoxCellRenderer(comboBox)); table.repaint(); } /** Custom class for adding elements in the JComboBox. */ class CheckBoxCellRenderer implements TableCellRenderer { JComboBox combo; public CheckBoxCellRenderer(JComboBox comboBox) { this.combo = new JComboBox(); for (int i=0; i&lt;comboBox.getItemCount(); i++){ combo.addItem(comboBox.getItemAt(i)); } } public Component getTableCellRendererComponent(JTable jtable, Object value, boolean isSelected, boolean hasFocus, int row, int column) { combo.setSelectedItem(value); return combo; } } </code></pre>