Java has annotations and that is good. However, some developers feel that it is best to annotate code with metadata using xml files - others prefer annotations but would use met
I wrote the Annox library which does exactly what you need. With Annox you can read arbitrary annotations from XML.
Use JAXB http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/WebServices/jaxb/ You would write the xsd for your metadata file, generate JAXB classes that can help you parse the xml files.
It's not exactly what you want, but the backport175 project has an implementation of annotations for Java versions before Java 5.
It has some of the functionality you search in that it will read both its own style implementations and "real" annotations if they are present. Maybe this can be used as a starting point to build a more general framework.
There is not a standard way, but here are some Java frameworks who does it: