AdvancedJTable defines two methods for retrieving and assigning the header row's visibility:

public boolean getShowRowHeader();

public void setShowRowHeader(boolean show);

You can show or hide the row header in your own JTable class by manipulating the enclosing JScrollPane:

JScrollPane scroller = new JScrollPane();

//show the row header

scroller.setRowHeaderView(rowHeader);

//hide the row header

scroller.setRowHeaderView(null);