Removing special characters in XML data using java

I am getting XML data from various external systems as part of intigration system. I am from IBM WMB back ground. I receive xml data max in 10KB size. I need to remove special characters in the XML before parse. The data is receivng from virious country region its getting genarated various special characters like "ÿ" etc. Please help me how to remove all those such special characters in my xml. External system does not have control to remove those special characters.

Highy appriciated for your help.

Thanks,

Anil.