Sample.java

import com.thoughtworks.xstream.annotations.XStreamAlias;
import com.thoughtworks.xstream.annotations.XStreamAsAttribute;

@XStreamAlias("sample")
public class Sample {

	@XStreamAsAttribute
	@XStreamAlias("myns:name")
	public final String name;

	@XStreamAsAttribute
	public final String value;

	public final String content;

	public Sample(String name, String value, String content) {
		super();
		this.name = name;
		this.value = value;
		this.content = content;
	}

	@Override
	public String toString() {
		return "Sample [name=" + name + ", value=" + value + ", content="
				+ content + "]";
	}

}

TestX.java

import java.io.StringReader;

import org.dom4j.Document;
import org.dom4j.DocumentException;
import org.dom4j.Element;
import org.dom4j.Node;
import org.dom4j.io.SAXReader;
import org.xml.sax.InputSource;

import com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream;
import com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.xml.Dom4JReader;

public class TestX {
	
	private static String xmlStr1 = "<sample xmlns:myns=\"http://mynamespace\" myns:name=\"some name\" value=\"some val\">" +
			"<content>stuff</content>" +
			"</sample>";

	/**
	 * @param args
	 * @throws DocumentException 
	 */
	public static void main(String[] args) throws DocumentException {
		XStream xstream = new XStream();
		@SuppressWarnings("rawtypes")
		Class[] classes = { Sample.class };

		xstream.processAnnotations(classes);
		
		SAXReader reader = new SAXReader();
		InputSource in = new InputSource( new StringReader( xmlStr1 ) );
		Document doc = reader.read(in);
		
		Sample s = (Sample) xstream.unmarshal(new Dom4JReader(doc));
		
		System.out.println(s);
	}
}