If I understand correctly, you want to create an instance of
JInternalFrame (call it I for Internal) in your action listener (call it L
for Listener), and then have this instance be visible from some JFrame (call
it F for Frame) than the listener L.

   If you can pass an instance of F to L, then you could add a field to F
to store the instance of I, and add some setters and getters. Then, when the
listener code in L executes, it calls the setter on F to pass a reference to
I.

<pseudoCode>
class F extends JFrame {
 private JInternalFrame myInternalFrame;

 public void setInternalFrame(JInternalFrame value) {
   this.myInternalFrame = value;
 }
}

class L implements SomeListener {
 public final F myF;

 public L(F myF) {
   this.myF = myF;
 }

 public void fireEvent() {
   myF.setInternalFrame(new JInternalFrame());
 }
}
</pseudoCode>

   - Oliver