convert string to Jlist

[peahead]

The following code snippet produces a string of words

            nWords = 0;
            findWords(Dawg.root, 0);//findWords is an anagram routine which produces the string
            strBuf.append("(" + nWords + ")"); //nwords = number of words
            HintListBox = new JList(model);
            model.addElement(strBuf.toString());

I am trying to populate the results into a JList but the results appear as a single string, i.e.

EAT would look like:

AT ATE EAT

what I need is

AT
ATE
EAT

Have been working on it for a while but cannot figure out how to 'split' each new word. I can do it for a TextBox but Jlist is a little bit trickier

Can someone shed some light?
Thanks