This tool paper gives an overview of Cadena – an integrated environment for building and modeling systems built using the CORBA Component Model (CCM). Cadena provides facilities for defining component types using CCM IDL, specifying dependency information and transition system semantics for these types, assembling systems from CCM components, visualizing various dependence relationships between components, specifying and verifying correctness properties of models of CCM systems derived from CCM IDL, component assembly information, and Cadena specifications, and producing CORBA stubs and skeletons implemented in Java. Cadena has been applied to build applications in Boeing’s Bold Stroke framework for avionics mission-control systems. Cadena is implemented in IBM’s Eclipse open-source IDE and is freely available.