Abstract: The present invention provides meta-implementation layer comprising: a metamodel repository containing a plurality of descriptors; a plurality of implementations for providing access to software components described by the plurality of descriptors; a metametamodel repository including a plurality of metamodel descriptors for describing the descriptors and a plurality of metamodel implementations for describing said implementations, wherein the meta-implementation layer provides access to an implementation of the plurality of implementations to thereby allow a user to have access to the software components of a software program. The present invention also provides a component integration engine using a meta-implementation layer.